Give Me Liberty
by LizzeXX
Summary: Steve/OC - Steve and Olivia have moved to Washington DC to better help SHIELD, but when the organization is compromised and they find themselves hunted down by the Winter Soldier, they don't know who to trust. When friends become foes, in more ways than one, how can they fight back? Will they be able to save Bucky from HYDRA a second time. Third in the Medic Examinations series.
1. Washington DC

A/N: Hello, hello! :) This is my first Captain America series and the **third story** in my Medic Examinations series, Give Me Liberty. The first story (And All Her Paths Were Peace) is listed under the CAPTAIN AMERICA section of this site while the second story (United We Stand) is listed under the Avengers as it follows the sequence of movies in the Captain America series. This is a Steve/OC story, featuring my OC Olivia Williams, and will follow mostly Steve and Olivia as they go through the movie with a few original scenes thrown in. This story will be about 10 chapters long and, as best I can manage, updated daily :)

For a reference, I picture Olivia to look something like Alison Lohman with strawberry blonde hair that leans more towards blonde. She is pale, with brown eyes, and short hair :) She tends to favor a more 1940s style of dress, but her 'superhero' uniform is a pair of red pants, tucked into dark blue boots, with a white shirt and a red jacket that has a white stripe across the middle of it and doesn't have a close to it so it stays open. She wears dark blue fingerless gloves and a white medical pack with straps that crisscross in front of her, to give the allusion of the Union flag. She was gifted a pair of vibranium batons by Phil Coulson when the Avengers assembled that she either wears crossed behind her or retracted in holsters on her thighs ;)

I hope you enjoy :)

~8~ is a scene break

Disclaimer...I don't own Captain America or things from the movie/comic, just my OC and some original aspects...or else not a hair on Bucky's head would have been harmed ;)

~8~

Washington, D.C.

Steve was trying his very best to keep his strength in check as he worked on the punching bag in the local gym he and Olivia had found in Washington D.C., one that SHIELD owned and used for their agents. After the battle of New York, SHIELD had requested that they come to their main base in D.C., where they claimed they could be of more help. It had been hard for Steve to leave the apartment they had only just started to set up, it was hard for him to leave New York at all. But his country asked, and he answered. It made sense, when he thought about it. It wouldn't be helpful to anyone if all the heroes congregated in the same place. Tony had New York covered, it was where he lived.

Captain America and Major Britannia hadn't really set down roots yet, and Washington D.C. was the center of the government. It would be a better place for the people as well, to see them based in such an area, or at least that was how Director Fury had described it.

He felt like it should have been harder, to leave New York, to leave his home. But it honestly wasn't as difficult as he'd always thought it would be when he'd been younger and thinking about where his life might go, before he enlisted, before the serum. It might have had something to do with the fact that, slowly but surely, over the course of just about 70 years, his idea of home had changed. Home wasn't a place to him, it was a person now.

One person, who was all he had left of his past, who understood him in a way no one else ever could.

He glanced over his shoulder at Olivia as she went through her own work out against another punching bag.

She had become what he associated with home. She was literally his past and present, and he knew she'd be his future, always. He knew he would be ok anywhere in the world so long as Olivia was with him, she was home. He was actually thinking that he might talk to Fury about organizing something for her. They'd been in the USA a few years since they'd woken from the ice, but they hadn't gotten to go to England for more than a quick visit or meeting with the government officials there. Maybe they could do something where they spent 3 or 4 years in the US, and the same amount based in the UK. He was sure Olivia felt the same about him as he did her, that he was home to her too, but it would be nice for her to be able to live in her country the way he'd gotten to live in his.

But he knew there was something else tying her to D.C. that went past just him, Peggy was here. Peggy Carter was living in a care facility for the elderly, specifically those suffering from mental deficiencies. It was an unfortunate reality that came with age. Peggy Carter had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease, her memories weren't what they used to be, and it broke Olivia's heart each time they visited. Each visit went mostly the same, Peggy couldn't seem to recall for more than a half hour or so at a time things they spoke of. To the woman, each time was the first time she was seeing her old friend again. In a very solemn and bittersweet way, it was clear just how much Olivia had meant to Peggy, her reaction revealed it each time she saw the girl. It was hard though, each time they saw her, it was as though she remembered less and less of the relationship the two of them shared during the war.

The last two times they visited, Peggy had told him she saw how he had been eyeing Olivia during basic training and asked what his intentions were with her best friend, as though she hadn't seen them together, as though she hadn't helped Olivia pick out a Christmas gift for him during the war. And the last time, she hadn't even recognized him. Sometimes the memories came back sporadically, she would remember something from the end of the war but forget something from the start. It was like she knew they had 'died' and she was so happy to see them, but she didn't know the details of it.

Olivia would never leave while Peggy was still here, having been separated from her best friend for so long, she wouldn't put Peggy through it again. And he considered the woman a very close and dear friend as well.

He punched the bag once more, before reaching out to steady the swing of it, turning to watch Olivia go through her routine. He smiled as he saw her practicing with her batons. Being closer to the center of SHIELD had given them more access to the weapons of the organization, more specifically, the trainers. There were a handful that specialized in teaching the new recruits the lesser used weapons. SHIELD wanted their agents to be able to use anything to protect themselves. Your gun get knocked away? Break a chair and use the legs. A bomb go off nearby, grab a fallen pole and use it as a staff.

He had spoken to Fury about Olivia's use of the batons during the battle of New York, about helping her learn to use them more. From what she had told him of her 'training session' with Natasha and Maria Hill, she hadn't actually learned how to use them. She'd only just gotten them right before the battle and had sort of made it up as she went. He wanted to help her be more proficient in them if she decided to go through with using them as her preferred weapon of defense. It had taken a little bit of convincing to get her to agree to actual lessons, she was still very nervous about accidentally harming her teacher.

So he'd offered to learn along with her, so she could practice with him and so he could be there to help her focus her strength. He wasn't fond of the batons, he preferred using his hands and shield much more, a gun if necessary. But he understood why they worked better for her and he would always do all he could to make her feel comfortable. Any weapon was fine by him so long as she knew how to defend herself, it was peace of mind for him.

Once Olivia had gotten to a point of comfort in terms of her strength she was able to go about her routines, practice, and lessons on her own. Some of his favorite parts of his day were watching her as she practiced. She had come so far. He couldn't help but think of the Commandos and Peggy in those moments, like now, when he watched her using the batons on the punching bag, utilizing her control of strength and aim. They would be proud of her.

When she had agreed to the lessons, she had asserted her authority with her trainer. She had been very clear in the skills she wanted to work on, the ways she wanted to attack. She was adamant that her blows be non-lethal, meant to incapacitate and not cause irreparable harm or too intense pain. She had warned her trainer and Fury alike that she was first and foremost a medic, _that_ would be her main role on the field. Clear and tend to civilians, tend to and protect her fallen comrades, and only after everything was secure would she use her weapons. She would NOT kill her enemy, she would knock them out for SHIELD to seize or what have them. She had stood her ground in the manner she would on missions or when she had to pull rank on others.

He was proud of her himself, he was always proud of her.

And he did quite enjoy watching her routines and practice. She was so focused and concentrated, her expressions reflecting that. Her motions were fluid by now, but sharp. Her strength controlled to a degree he honestly wasn't sure HE could manage. But, then again, she had been working on keeping her strength on par with an average human for longer than him, not utilizing her speed or strength unless she was pulling men off the battlefield. She had been far more worried about accidentally harming someone else than he had. When he was fighting, he intended to use his strength to take down the enemy, and he knew that wouldn't be the case for her. She fought and held back or used the way her wrists moved to diminish the force behind her blows.

But it was a step.

"You are burning a hole in the back of my head," Olivia's voice cut through his thoughts.

"You're worth looking at," he shrugged easily.

Olivia hit the bag once more before retracting the batons and moving them to a small set of holsters on her thighs, a gift from Natasha that she'd given to Olivia while also sending a wink at him.

He was going to kill that woman…or thank her.

He hadn't thought he was a leg man until he'd seen Olivia in her 'workout' uniform that SHIELD had offered them. It was nothing revealing. Long pants, a long sleeved shirt or short sleeved shirt depending on her preference. But the material was quite fitted and stretchy, which did not leave much to the imagination at times. The additional holsters…

He shook his head, willing himself not to let his mind venture down that path.

"The same for you," Olivia smiled at him and he barely bit back a grin at how she glanced at him up and down, "Finished with yours?"

He nodded, holding out a hand to her and tugging her close when she took it, "You?"

She nodded as well, sighing lightly as he began to shift them back and forth without realizing it, "I'm still a bit unsure of the strength but I think, if the bag is still in one piece, then it must mean I'm doing something right."

"My offer to spar with you is still open," he reminded her.

"I don't think I'm quite ready to truly spar with you with the batons."

She had gotten somewhat better with actually sparing with him in terms of fists. He had gotten her with the reminder that, if she lost her batons, she needed to keep her hand-to-hand sharp and that using the batons had proven she could control her strength and not harm her opponent. And he had expressed his own concerns with harming his sparring partner. She was the only one who could match him in terms of strength. She was the only one he felt like he could truly use the full force of a punch to the hand without fearing he'd broken it.

Slowly they had worked their way up to something of a spar, though a slow going one. Olivia was more comfortable wearing the training mitts and helping him keep his punches and kicks sharp.

Steve nodded, reminding himself that slow and steady would win the race. He didn't want to push her too much, when she was comfortable he would be there for her.

He glanced down at a watch on his wrist, "Well, we've still got some time before our mission later, what do you have in mind?"

It was the least he could do to offer her their next activity. Usually they would work out later in the day, but with the mission coming up and the nerves that always seemed to come up before one, Olivia had offered that they go work out earlier. Now that they had finished their routines, he wanted to let her pick the next thing they did.

"Hmmm," she hummed lightly, considering it, "I'm not sure. Do you have any ideas?"

"Oh, I got plenty," he grinned at her.

She began to smile as well, "Such as?"

"Well, to start…" he leaned down to give her a quick kiss.

"Steve," she laughed a bit as she pulled away a moment later, "We shouldn't, we're at a SHIELD location."

Steve looked around in an exaggerated manner, "I don't see any agents around…"

Olivia reached up a finger to press to his lips when he leaned in again, "There's always someone watching," she whispered, nodding her head to the side.

He glanced over his shoulder and up to see a security camera in the corner of the ceiling. He sighed as he looked back at her, dropping his head and shaking it in a long-suffering way.

"You're insatiable," Olivia laughed, leaning in to quickly press a kiss to the tip of his nose, making him smile even more when she patted a hand on his chest, where the necklace she had given him was nestled under his shirt.

"Can you blame me?" he chuckled, "My best girl is literally the best girl in the world."

"I'm not sure about that…"

"Oh, she is," he winked, "Trust me, Captain America says so."

"Ooh, Captain America does? Well, I shan't argue with him."

Steve laughed more, shaking his head at her as he stepped back, lowering his hands from where they were wrapped around her and sliding them along her arms to take her hands. He lifted her left hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles, "I love you, Liv."

"I love you too, Steve," she smiled at him, "And you are not making it easy not to kiss you."

He grinned and winked at her, "Well, then, how about we get out of here?"

Olivia laughed at how he wiggled his eyebrows at her, only half-joking she knew. She shook her head at him, starting to step backwards towards the door to the room, Steve following along by the hand she hadn't let go of, "Why Captain Rogers, how forward of you."

"Have to be," he went along, "Can't let a dame like you get away."

"You're quite the eager beaver, aren't you?"

"Well, we have a mission coming up," he shrugged, "We won't be able to be just Steve and Liv till it's over. Need to make the most of the time we have."

"I see," she nodded, reaching the door, "In that case…" she smiled, leaning in towards him as he began to do the same…

When she suddenly turned and ran out of the room, shouting "You'll have to catch me first!" over her shoulder.

Steve laughed, shaking his head, and bolted after her.

~8~

Steve shook his head as he ran along the paths of Washington, D.C., he'd known this would happen the moment Olivia had run out of the SHIELD training gym. He'd already lost sight of her. And he was damn proud of that.

He should have expected her to rush out. While they did work out closer to the evening hours, they would tend to go on jogs in the mornings. It would have been reasonable for her to initiate the jog as well, knowing how much he liked getting his exercise in each day. That and it would certainly make him work for those kisses he'd tried to steal. Sometimes on their jogs, when they were feeling particularly competitive, they would challenge each other to see who was the fastest. She was truly of the impression that he was letting her win, that he was holding back to make her seem faster.

But, honest to god, he wasn't.

This proved it, to him at least, after so long of wondering, Olivia really was faster than him. And he was pretty sure a number of people would think he was insane for being so happy about that, that Captain America was slower than Major Britannia, but he really was pleased. Olivia hadn't gotten to utilize her own strength and speed much during the War, at least not in a way that most people noticed besides how many men she got off the field. She'd always been held back, so to see her able to use her speed to the fullest, and to be faster than him, was incredible.

They still hadn't solved who was stronger yet, but he was sure that would come eventually, and he was sure it would be a close one.

This was still close, relatively speaking. He'd only lost sight of Olivia because she made it around a turn.

He looked ahead to where an African American man was jogging too, "On your left!" he called out in warning as he dashed past the man. He turned a corner in time to see Olivia jogging backwards, winking at him, before she turned and ran faster.

"Oh, it's on," he murmured under his breath, pushing himself to go faster, a grin on his face.

He hadn't managed to catch up to her though, despite looping back around the path he'd been taking. He spotted the man from before and called out another, "On your left," as he passed.

"Uh-huh," he could hear the man mutter, "On my left. Got it."

Steve shook his head, pushing himself on, laughing to himself when he saw Olivia a good distance ahead, standing under a tree, her back leaning against it with her arms crossed, resting. He ran faster, thinking he might be able to get ahead of her while she was distracted, but it was clear she heard him coming because she took off before he could even get close.

"Minx," he muttered.

He was determined, this next time, their last lap, that he was going to catch up to her. He managed to keep her in sight the entire lap. Though he was growing suspicious she was holding back now to give him a chance to catch up. He had barely broken a sweat and he knew she probably hadn't either. He wasn't about to complain though.

About halfway through the last lap he spotted the man yet again.

"Don't say it!" he could hear the man shouting when he'd glanced back to see who was running behind him, and appeared to be pushing himself even faster, "Don't you say it!"

"On your left!" he called out, almost without noticing, his gaze and attention fixed on Olivia, he was catching up!

"Come on!" the man now behind him grumbled.

Steve pushed himself faster, as fast as he could go, making it back to where he and Olivia had started from, just as she reached the same point.

Olivia let out a squeal that morphed into a laugh when he reached her and caught her around the middle from behind, swinging her around in a circle a few times before setting her back down.

"I win," she smiled at him.

"Hmm," he hummed, "No, I don't think you did."

"I beat you here," she pointed out.

"Nope, I still don't think you won."

"You think _you_ did then?"

He smiled at her, "I caught you," he murmured, "I count that as the win of all wins."

Olivia's expression grew soft at his words, "You caught me decades ago."

"And I thank god every day that I did," he added, in full agreement, "I caught you, and you caught me. In more ways than one."

And it was true. She had caught him when he'd nearly spiraled at the loss of Bucky. She'd caught him when he'd nearly turned into the mindless, obedient soldier he'd never wanted to be. She'd caught him at his lowest and he liked to think he caught her when she struggled too.

"I don't understand how you're still so sweet after everything that's happened," she remarked softly.

"The feeling's mutual," he told her, "You're still so kind, after everything. Don't ever change."

"You either."

He smiled at her and leaned in to press a kiss to her lips. They began to walk along the path they'd been running, his arm moving over her shoulder, the two of them using the time to cool down from their run.

"Is he alright?" Olivia asked when they'd reached the halfway mark of their path, frowning over at the same man she and Steve had passed. He was sitting down against a tree, breathing quite heavily.

"Let's check on him," Steve offered, leading them towards the man, knowing Olivia wouldn't be able to just walk past someone in need, neither could he, "Need a medic?" he asked, nodding his head over at Olivia, "We happen to have one right here…"

Olivia shook her head at him and moved to kneel next to the man, reaching out to take his hand, pressing the proper fingers to his wrist. While it wasn't as good a place to read a pulse as the neck, it was less intrusive.

"I'm fine," the man insisted, though he didn't pull his hand away, the woman was very kind to check on him. And, hell, it wasn't everyday he got a checkup by _Major Britannia_ , "I may need a new set of lungs though," he laughed, "Dude, you just ran like 13 miles in 30 minutes."

"I guess I got a late start," Steve shrugged, though there was a smile on his face as he looked at Olivia.

"You are terrible," she murmured to him, shooting him a look over her shoulder, "70 years has created a monster."

Steve just let out a laugh. He never denied that he enjoyed watching her take off on their runs. She was joking, of course, that the way people acted in this more modern age had affected him, that he was perhaps watching her run for the sake of watching another part of her anatomy ahead of him. But that wasn't the case.

…or at least not _all_ of it, a small part of him could admit the athletic clothing of this time was far more formfitting. Right now she was wearing a pair of dark grey jogging pants with a pink shirt.

He just believed in ladies first.

"You should be ashamed of yourself," the man remarked in a joking fashion, clearly able to read into the implication of it all, "You should take another lap."

"You should," Olivia agreed, "You lost, after all."

"Wait, YOU beat him?" the man looked at Olivia, "I didn't even see you pass me!"

"She's fast and quiet," Steve offered, "And she was teasing me the entire time."

"Oh, that's awful for you to be teased by a beautiful woman," the man rolled his eyes, "Why don't you take a lap with him too?" he looked between the two rather amused looking super soldiers, "Did you just take it? I assumed you just took it."

Olivia shook her head, patting his hand as she let go of his wrist, "Be sure to walk fairly soon, or your legs will not forgive you later."

"Ma'am, yes, ma'am," he gave her a small salute.

"What unit you with?" Steve asked, hearing more familiarity in his voice at how he responded to Olivia.

"58, Para-rescue. But now I'm working down at the VA. Sam Wilson."

"Olivia," she offered, standing and holding out a hand at the same time Steve did to help the man up. She laughed and stepped aside to let Steve do the honors, "And this is Steve."

"I um, kind of put that together," he warned them lightly, "Must have freaked you guys out, coming home after the whole defrosting thing."

"It takes some getting used to," Steve agreed.

"Though home hasn't quite changed that much," Olivia added, moving her arm around Steve's middle to rest against him.

The way she smiled at him, the way Steve returned it, it was clear to Sam that they both considered each other to be home. It was good, that they had each other. So many times people came back from their deployments and had no one that understood what they'd gone through nearby. At least they had someone who had gone through the war to help them through the transition, both to the war being over and the change in the era they found themselves in.

Steve shook himself out of the moment and looked over at Sam, "It's good to meet you, Sam."

"I hope we see you again soon," Olivia offered as they turned to go.

"It's your bed, right?" he called after them.

"What's that?" Steve glanced at him.

"Your bed, it's too soft. When I was over there, I'd sleep on the ground and use rock for pillows, like a caveman. Now I'm home, lying in my bed, and it's like..."

"Lying on a marshmallow. Feel like I'm gonna sink right to the floor."

Olivia gave them both a small, sad smile at their words. Her particular bed hadn't changed much. All through the war, when she was with the Commandos, they all tended to look away and pretend they hadn't seen how she and Steve would end up sleeping next to each other during the night. She often found herself falling asleep with her head on his shoulder or his chest, listening to his heartbeat calmed her very much. So long as she had his heartbeat in her ear and his arm around her, she could sleep easy. For Steve, though, it was a little harder.

"How long?" she asked Sam.

"Two tours," Sam let out a long sigh, "You must miss the good old days, huh?"

"It…balances out, a bit," Olivia offered, "Things we lost with things we gained."

"Things aren't so bad," Steve agreed, "Food's a lot better, we used to boil everything."

"More tea options," Olivia remarked, "But, then again, _iced_ tea," she grimaced which made Sam chuckle.

"No polio is good."

"Women's rights, much better too."

"Internet, so helpful."

"Ooh, yes," Olivia nodded, "That and the History Channel."

"We've been using them a lot, trying to catch up."

Sam looked between them, amused, "Marvin Gaye, 1972, 'Trouble Man' soundtrack. Everything you've missed jammed into one album."

"I'll put it on the list," Steve agreed, pulling out a small notebook and a pen from his pocket to jot that down.

Olivia glanced at it, reminding herself what they still had left to look into. There was the television series 'I Love Lucy,' the moon landing, when the Berlin Wall came down, someone named Steve Jobs who apparently created a very popular apple, Disco music…she wasn't sure about that one, Thai Food which did sound interesting, Star Wars vs. Star Trek, though she and Steve had seen the Star Wars movies. Natasha had broken into their apartment, they'd walked in to see her sitting on their couch and threatening to lock them in until they'd 'binge watched' a Star Wars marathon with her. There was also the Nirvana band, and another movie, Rocky, which might also have a sequel. And now there was Marvin Gaye added to it.

She nearly jumped when she felt something ping in her pocket and pulled out a mobile phone SHIELD had given them. There was a single 'text message' that read:

' _Mission alert. Extraction imminent. Meet at the curb. :)'_

Olivia shook her head and showed it to Steve, still infinitely amused that the Black Widow used 'emojis' as she had come to understand they were little things used for fun and silliness.

"Alright, Sam, duty calls," Steve told him, "Thanks for the run. If that's what you wanna call running."

"Oh, that's how it is?" Sam joked as he reached out to shake hands with Captain America and Major Britannia. (He just shook hands with Captain America and Major Britannia!)

"Oh, that's how it is," Steve laughed.

"It has to be," Olivia pointed out, "He hasn't managed a proper run with me either."

"Oh ho ho," Sam smiled at that, even as Steve shook his head, looking amused as well, "Well, any time you wanna stop by the VA, make me look awesome in front of the girl at the front desk, just let me know."

"Well, we're always ready to help others," Olivia remarked, not quite promising to show up, but letting him know they fully intended to do their best.

"See you then," Sam waved them off as they turned to go, making their way to the curb just as a car pulled up.

The passenger's window rolled down and they could see Natasha within, "Hey there," she called out to them, "Any of you know where the Smithsonian is? I'm here to pick up a couple of fossils."

"That's hilarious," Steve deadpanned, opening the door for Olivia to get in the back seat.

"It _was_ quite witty," Olivia remarked as she headed in, Steve joining in the front seat.

Sam stepped closer, eyeing both Natasha and the car, "How you doing?"

"Hey," she smiled at him in return.

"Can't run everywhere," Steve remarked.

"No, you can't," he agreed, watching as the car took off.

It was only after they turned a corner that he realized he should have taken a picture with them, no one at the VA was going to believe he'd just met Captain America and Major Britannia.

Damn.

A/N: And we're back! :D I'm so sorry this was up so late. I intended to have this posted about a week after my Spock/Cora story but my siblings and I surprised our mom with a puppy and I was mostly on puppy watching duty and fell behind :( But we're up now with a return of Olivia and Steve, or as a vote decided, Stevia :) I wanted to add a bit more to the jogging scene to show where Olivia and Steve are right now, how they're doing, before really getting into the story ;)

I'm really excited for this one, especially the Winter Soldier, I think this was my favorite Captain America movie so I hope I do it justice for all of you too :)

And, just to end, mostly putting this here because I've promised my sister I would actually tell people it. I made a page called ko-fi, where people can show support of a person by contributing a 'cup of coffee' to them. It's not a real cup of coffee, it's a donation that is roughly the cost of a cup of coffee, or about 3 dollars. The link is up on my profile or on my tumblr's LINKS page if anyone is interested. There's no obligation, requirement, or commitment, it just sort of feels to me like a little 'let's talk about your work over a cup of coffee' ;)

Some notes on reviews...(from the end of United We Stand)...

Lol, no offense taken :) My mind goes straight to the sweetener mostly because when I worked at a small cafe, people kept asking us for Stevia and we didn't use that sweetener lol :) As for a marriage, I can say you're not the only one who will be asking that very question, someone in the story will too very soon ;)

I don't want to give away too much, but I can say the 'Aunt Liv' thing is mostly because Howard became such good friends with them, (though mostly Steve), he talked about them so much it just sort of felt like she was part of the family. That and I can't see Peggy not being 'Aunt Peggy' to Tony too as he grew up ;)

Lol, I could see Olivia substituting a curse with 'iced tea', it's definitely going to be a recurring thing for her ;)

Thank you so much! I'm so glad you've been enjoying the stories so far :D It means a lot to me to hear :')


	2. Suspicions

Suspicions

The mission had changed. It wasn't even the same mission any longer, as they'd been informed when Natasha had brought them to a SHIELD base and they'd been hurried to a jet, given moments to don their uniforms and rejoin the rest of their team. One of the other agents, Brock Rumlow, was the one tasked with briefing them for their new objective.

"The target is a mobile satellite launch platform: The Lemurian Star," Rumlow explained, "They were sending up their last payload when pirates took them, 93 minutes ago."

Olivia frowned, reading over the extra information they'd been given and glancing up at Rumlow, "Have they made any demands?"

"A billion and a half."

Steve let out a whistle, "Why so steep?"

"Because it SHIELD's."

"So it's not off-course, it's trespassing."

"I'm sure they have a good reason," Natasha spoke up from nearby, hearing the caution and vague suspicion in Steve's voice.

Steve scoffed, tossing the small packet onto the small table between him and Olivia, "You know, I'm getting a little tired of being Fury's janitor."

Olivia had to nod at that. She was getting a bit cross with how Fury didn't seem to really tell them anything until the very last second. This felt too much like what happened in New York, the HYDRA-like weapons SHIELD had been hiding from them. They hadn't had the best record for being forthcoming with information in the past. She could understand this mission had come out of nowhere, but she and Steve had had no idea SHIELD had any mobile satellite others might want to steal in such a manner. And even looking at the information they _had_ been given, it was clear there were parts missing.

"Relax," Natasha rolled her eyes, "It's not that complicated."

Steve glanced at Olivia, seeing an unease in that response and lack of actual answer too. But he sighed, right now their priority had to be stopping the pirates, and looked back over at Rumlow, "How many pirates?"

"Twenty five, top mercs," he replied, "Led by this guy. Georges Batroc," he pressed a button, bringing up a photo of Batroc on the monitor for them to view, "Ex-DGSE, Action Division. He's at the top of Interpol's Red Notice. Before the French demobilized him, he had thirty-six kill missions. This guy's got a rep for maximum casualties."

"If he's got that many kill missions, he won't hesitate to use any advantage," Olivia remarked, "He's taken hostages, hasn't he?"

Rumlow nodded, "Mostly techs…"

"Still people," Olivia stated firmly, "How many?"

"We're not sure," Rumlow sighed, "We do have confirmation of at least one officer, Jasper Sitwell," he pushed another button and brought up a second image of Sitwell.

"Do we at least know where they're being held?"

"In the galley."

Olivia nodded, happy they'd at least gotten some sort of solid information.

"What's Sitwell doing on a launch ship?" Steve asked, but neither Rumlow nor Natasha answered, though they both looked at each other first. Steve scoffed under his breath and glanced at Olivia who could only give him a minute shrug. There wasn't much they could do about getting information now. He sighed, shaking his head and getting back to the plan of attack, "Alright, I'm gonna sweep the deck and find Batroc. Nat, you'll kill the engines and wait for instructions. Liv, you take Rumlow and the other men and sweep aft, find the hostages, get them checked and to the life-pods, get 'em out. Sound like a plan?"

Rumlow had only made the mistake once of scoffing at the fact that Captain America always turned to a woman for confirmation of his plan. It hadn't even been the fearsome look Rogers had given him, like he was about to punch the man for his remark, but the real kicker had been Olivia merely reminding him, more politely than he had probably deserved, that she technically outranked not just Captain America but himself as well and could bench him if he gave her reason to.

That and Natasha had then remarked to him that Olivia was also their medic and she could either make treating his wounds painless or excruciating.

A large part of him knew that the girl would never intentionally inflict pain on someone, but another part of him also knew Natasha would insist on assisting and _she_ would certainly make it hell.

"Agreed," Olivia's response pulled the man from his thoughts.

Steve nodded, turning back to Rumlow, "Let's move."

"STRIKE!" he called out to the men, "You heard 'em. Gear up."

Steve stood, holding out a hand to Olivia to help her up, the two of them moving closer to the ramp of the jet, checking each other for preparedness.

"Secure channel seven," Steve called into a wrist comm., looking at Olivia as she touched her ear, where a connection to the channel was, nodding her head in confirmation.

"Seven secure," Natasha reported, glancing back at the men as they geared up. She moved over to the two super soldiers as Steve secured Olivia's parachute, "Did you two do anything fun Saturday night?"

"Not the best time to make conversation, Tasha," Olivia remarked with a small smile.

"We got time," she shrugged.

"Well, all the guys from my barbershop quartet are dead, so..." Steve deadpanned, "No, not really."

"Coming up by the drop zone," the pilot reported to them.

"You know," Natasha continued, "Saturday would have been a great day for a wedding. When ARE you two tying the knot?"

Olivia gave a small laugh, "We're quite old-fashioned, Tasha."

"We're not in the 1940s anymore guys," she replied, "You're not getting any younger. Give me 48 hours and I can have one ready to go."

Steve shook his head, "If anyone's planning a wedding for us, it would be us."

"So you ARE planning one then?"

Steve just gave her a salute in response, sending a wink at Olivia as he let himself fall out of the jet.

"Was he wearing a parachute?!" one of the agents called.

"No," Rumlow replied with a grin, "No, he wasn't."

"He never does," Olivia murmured, moving to jump out after him.

"All I'm seeing is he's more than ready to take the plunge!" Natasha called after her as Olivia made her move, followed closely by the other agents.

Olivia maneuvered her parachute to keep Steve in sight. He'd dived down into the ocean, using it to break his fall and swimming to the ship and climbing up. She could see him quickly taking care of the active soldiers on the deck before the alarm could sound, until one managed to sneak up behind him, aiming a gun at him.

She could hear him shouting at Steve in French, telling him not to move, and she quickly disengaged her parachute, now at a good position to drop onto the deck, aiming her fall so she knocked the man to the side, out cold.

"Nice landing," Steve smiled at her.

"One less fatality," she nodded over to the other members of the STRIKE team as they neared the ship with their own parachutes, able to see Rumlow had pulled a gun, clearly ready to shoot the pirate than knock him out.

He nodded at that, waiting just a few more seconds for the rest of the team and Natasha to land on deck with them.

"What about a honeymoon?" was the first thing that Natasha asked once she was down and secure, "Hawaii's overrated if you ask me. But I hear Disney is some good old-fashioned fun."

Steve shook his head at her, "Secure the engine room, then pick our brains about honeymooning."

"I'm multitasking," she defended, following them across the deck, but jumping over a side railing to a lower level and beginning her part of the mission.

Steve looked over at the rest of the team and Olivia, "You ready for this?" he asked her, "Need to use the loo?" he added, getting one final tease in before they would both have to be serious.

"Always," she joked back, their own little thing, a reminder of how they'd felt before the experiments that changed their lives, "But we've got the hostages, you take care of Batroc."

Steve gave her a small salute and moved through the ship in search of the man while Olivia led the rest of the men to find the hostages.

Olivia wasn't sure about the other men, but the lower they went into the ship, the more she could hear someone shouting in French. She quickly led the team in that direction, now able to make out the actual words being shouted.

Someone was giving the order to look for Batroc, stating that if they didn't hear from him in two minutes, he would start to kill them.

By them, she assumed, it was the hostages.

She made a hand gesture to the men, signaling for them to follow her. She led them to a corner, where she could hear another pirate replying in an affirmative and gestured for Rumlow to take lead, but making sure to gesture that this attack was to be silent and non-lethal.

Rumlow nodded and peeked around the corner, before hastily going down the corridor, seeing an opening. The pirate had his back turned while he spoke to someone through a door. He hurried to get behind the man, a stun gun at the ready, waiting till the pirate turned around, clearing the door, before he fired.

The man began to go down and was about to hit the ground, when Olivia caught him, having followed Rumlow close behind, keeping the noise of the thump from reaching the room beyond the door and alerting anyone within that something was wrong. She shot Rumlow a pointed look and he held up his hands in innocence. She shook her head at that, she was going to need to speak to the STRIKE team about treating their targets still as human beings. Whether they were pirates or not, take them out, don't cause even more undue pain just out of spite.

She gently moved the fallen pirate off to the side, making room for another member of the team to secure the man's hands while another seized his weapons. She stood and moved back, allowing the team to go forward with their part of the mission, getting the door open to the hostages. Rumlow and another agent began to work on placing a small bomb on the door the pirate had been guarding and speaking through…

~8~

Steve was silent as he watched the control room from the deck, catching one of the pirates calling out to another man, Batroc.

"Targets acquired," Steve heard over the comm..

~8~

"STRIKE in position," Rumlow added, aiming his gun at the bomb that would lead them to the hostages, when Olivia reached out to put a hand on his arm to still him.

"Tasha, what's your status?" Olivia called into her comm., but there was no response.

"Status, Natasha?" Steve repeated.

"Hang on!" Natasha huffed, the two of them waiting another moment or two before she was back, "Engine room secure."

Olivia looked over to the door, hearing one of the pirates shouting from within, how their time was up, asking who wanted to die first, and ordering another to take the girl.

"Situation's escalated," Olivia reported to Steve.

"On my mark," he responded across all channels, "Three. Two. One."

Olivia stepped aside as the team readied their weapons, blowing the bomb and rushing through the door, Rumlow quickly taking down the first pirate that turned to retaliate.

"I told you," one of the hostages, Sitwell, called out, "SHIELD doesn't negotiate!"

"Clear!" Rumlow shouted back once the pirates were down.

Olivia moved in, going right to the hostages, "Is anyone injured?" she began to check them over quickly.

~8~

Steve smirked, watching as one of the pirates in the control room tried to call out something through the comms., but no one was answering. He moved back and raised his shield, taking a running start and smashing through the window. He began to hurl his shield around, taking down any pirates still there, but he could see Batroc managing to make it through a door, about to escape and rushed after him.

"Hostages en route to extraction," Rumlow reported.

"No fatal injuries sustained," Olivia added, "But Tasha's missed the rendezvous point."

"Hostiles are still in play."

Steve grit his teeth, calling out to Natasha over the comm., "Natasha, Batroc's on the move. Circle back to Rumlow and protect the hostages," but, like before, there was no reply, "Natasha!"

While he was distracted by the lack of response, Batroc got the jump on him just as he reached the deck of the ship, forcing him to engage in combat. He managed to knock the man down, but Batroc quickly got up again.

He shouted something at Steve in French, which he understood to mean something about him being more than a shield and moved to put his shield on his back, raising his fists as he took off his mask, "On va voir," he replied: Let's see.

That was all Batroc needed to engage in combat once more, the two of them fighting hard, though he held back his strength. They needed Batroc alive and he wasn't about to injure the man too badly. However the fight was getting nowhere and they didn't have time to waste. So he used a bit more force than normal, tackling the man after he got up from another blow, sending them both smashing through a door and into another room of the base…

Steve looked over when he heard Natasha speak, "Well, this is awkward," to see she was there, downloading something from a computer.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

"Backing up the hard drive. It's a good habit to get into."

"Liv and Rumlow needed your help! What the hell are you doing here?" he strode over to see what, exactly, she was backing up that was so much more important than seeing the mission completed, "You're saving SHIELD Intel?"

"Whatever I can get my hands on," she didn't deny it.

"Our mission is to rescue hostages."

"No," she said simply, "That's _your_ mission," before she pulled the flashdrive out, "And you've done it beautifully."

Steve reached out and grabbed her arm as she moved to just walk out, "You just jeopardized this whole operation."

She scoffed, "I think that's overstating things."

There was a sudden cry that drew their attention over to where Batroc had gotten his breath back and jumped up, throwing a grenade at them before running off. Steve reacted quickly, using his shield to bat the grenade away, grabbing Natasha and running through the room towards a window at the end into another lab, the two of them crashing through the glass moments before the explosion went off, covering them with his shield.

"Ok," Natasha panted once it was over, "That one's on me."

"You're damn right!" Steve nearly growled, getting up and stalking away.

~8~

Olivia could tell Steve was not pleased when he strode into Fury's office, the two of them back at the Triskelion, SHIELD's headquarters. And if she was being honest, she was not pleased either. Batroc had escaped, Steve and Natasha had sustained minor injuries from the grenade he'd used, and they'd been late in departing with the hostages. She had had to pull rank on Rumlow to keep the rest of the STRIKE team from leaving Steve and Natasha behind.

For how angry Steve had clearly been at something Natasha had done, he'd still insisted she treat the woman first for the minor scrapes she'd gotten jumping through a window. Once that was done, she set her sights on Steve and spoke with him quietly over what had happened that delayed them. She had been initially startled, but not ultimately surprised that Fury had apparently given Natasha a mission within the mission. She didn't understand what the point was of not informing her or Steve. If it was part of the mission, it wasn't like they would forbid Natasha to do it. They would have been more likely to help give her more time or keep the pirates away from her location to keep her safer. There was no reason for Fury to have lied to them or not told them about Natasha's own mission other than that he just didn't trust them or didn't want them to know.

And the last time he hadn't wanted them to know something, it didn't end well for anyone when the airbase nearly went down and Phil Coulson nearly died. They had been lucky then. But she and Steve, their faith in SHIELD had been shaken with how blatantly Fury had tried to hide the fact that SHIELD was making HYDRA-like weapons. Fury not telling them this wasn't helping renew their faith.

"You just can't stop yourself from lying, can you?" Steve demanded as soon as they were in the room.

Fury didn't seem affected at all, "I didn't lie. Agent Romanoff had a different mission than yours."

"Which was something you didn't bother to tell us," Olivia reminded him, "Why?"

"I'm not obligated to tell either of you anything."

"Those hostages could've died, Nick!" Steve shouted.

Fury just rolled his eyes, "I sent the greatest soldier and the best medic in history to make sure that didn't happen."

Olivia shook her head at him, "And there's not much even we can do if we don't trust the team you send with us. Did you not learn from your Avengers initiative? We can and will do our best, but if our team is operating on their own best interests, it means little."

"Soldiers trust each other," Steve agreed, "That's what makes it an army. Not a bunch of guys running around and shooting guns."

"The last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye," Fury scoffed.

Steve shook his head at that and looked over at Olivia as though asking her if she believed this guy. The last time either of them had trusted someone, it was each other. Every second of every day, and it had worked out for them.

"Look," Fury sighed, seeming to start to realize that he might have gone about it the wrong way, that what he had issues with, they didn't, and what they had issues with, he didn't, "I didn't want either of you doing anything you weren't comfortable with. Agent Romanoff is comfortable with everything."

"We can't lead a mission when the people we're leading have missions of their own," Steve countered.

"It's called compartmentalization. Nobody spills the secrets because nobody knows them all."

"And if we had chosen not to apprehend pirates that might have gone after the same intel, because we didn't know it existed?" Olivia offered, "What then? Natasha could have died in a shootout and you'd have lost an assassin and all your bloody information. If we'd known, we could have given her more time, sent someone else to secure the engine rooms."

"You can't be the only one to know all the secrets," Steve added, "We're not asking you to tell us everything SHIELD is up to. But when it comes to a mission, we need to know what everyone else is doing or should be doing."

Fury stared them down, considering their words, before he sighed, "You're wrong about me. I do share. I'm nice like that," he pushed himself up from his desk and moved across the office to an elevator, stepping inside and allowing Steve and Olivia to follow, "Insight Bay," he called out.

"Major Williams and Captain Rogers do not have clearance for Project Insight," a computerized voice stated.

"Director override, Fury, Nicholas J."

"Confirmed."

Olivia glanced down as the elevator began to lower in silence.

"You know, they used to play music," Steve remarked, if just for something to say.

"Yeah," Fury agreed, "My grandfather operated one of these things for forty years. My granddad worked in a nice building, he got good tips. He'd walk home every night, roll of ones stuffed in his lunch bag. He'd say 'hi,' people would say hi back. Time went on, neighborhood got rougher. He'd say 'Hi,' they'd say, 'Keep on steppin'.' Granddad got to grippin' that lunch bag a little tighter."

"Did he ever get mugged?"

"Every week some punk would say, 'What's in the bag?'"

"What did he say?" Olivia asked.

"Didn't say much," Fury shrugged, "He'd just show 'em. Bunch of crumpled ones and loaded .22 Magnum," he smiled at the memory, "Granddad loved people. But he didn't trust them very much."

"Helicarriers?" Olivia nodded out the glass of the elevator, seeing enormous helicarriers on other levels.

"Yeah, I know. They're a little bit bigger than a .22," he stepped off the elevator and into the bay for the carriers, "This is Project Insight. Three next generation Helicarriers synced to a network of targeting satellites."

"Launched from the Lemurian Star," Steve realized.

Fury nodded, "Once we get them in the air they never need to come down. Continuous suborbital flight courtesy of our new repulsor engines."

"Tony?" Olivia guessed.

"Well, he had a few suggestions once he got an up close look at our old turbines. These new long range precision guns can eliminate a thousand hostiles a minute. The satellites can read a terrorist's DNA before he steps outside his spider hole. We gonna neutralize a lot of threats before they even happen."

Steve tensed at that, a quick look at Olivia and the deep frown of concern on her face telling him she wasn't pleased to hear that either, "I thought the punishment usually came _after_ the crime."

"Innocent until proven guilty," Olivia reminded.

"We can't afford to wait that long," Fury shrugged far too easily.

"Who's 'we?'" Steve frowned.

"After New York, I convinced the World Security Council we needed a quantum surge in threat analysis. For once we're way ahead of the curve."

"By holding a gun at everyone on Earth and calling it protection?"

"You know, I read those SSR files," Fury glanced at them, "Greatest generation? You guys did some nasty stuff."

"We compromised where we could," Olivia reminded him, "Where we couldn't, we didn't. But when we knew something was wrong, we stood against it, even if everyone else was telling us it was right."

"Yeah, we compromised," Steve agreed, "Sometimes in ways that made us not sleep so well. But we did it so the people could be _free_. This isn't freedom, this is fear."

"SHIELD takes the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be," Fury told them, "It's getting damn near past time for you two to get with that program."

Steve scoffed, shaking his head, reaching out to take Olivia's hand as she joined him, the two standing against Fury's words in solidarity, "Don't hold your breath," he warned Fury before turning to leave with Olivia.

"How is SHIELD taking the world as it is, when their entire program with those carriers is meant to force it to be how they want it to be?" Olivia asked him quietly, not understanding.

"I have no idea," Steve sighed, the two of them reaching the elevator to head back up, not wanting to be in the base longer than they needed to be now.

They were silent as they took the elevator back, not speaking a word even as they left Fury's office and departed the SHIELD headquarters. It wasn't safe to speak there, as Olivia had mentioned earlier in the gym, someone was always watching. They both had some true concerns with what SHIELD was doing, but they couldn't talk abut it while in a SHIELD facility.

Once they were far enough away though, Olivia turned to him, "This reminds me too much of HYDRA," she remarked, "Does it you?"

He nodded, letting out a sigh as he ran a hand through his hair, "Leading by fear under the guise of protection," he shook his head, "This isn't what we fought for. This isn't what we signed up for with Erskine's experiment either."

"I know," Olivia sighed, "I don't understand it though, how could SHIELD have come to this? This was exactly what the SSR fought against."

Steve let out a little scoff, "I asked myself the same thing when they tried to build weapons powered by the Tesseract. Something isn't right here."

"I agree," Olivia nodded, "I just…I can't imagine Peggy would have ever agreed to anything like this."

"That's probably why they waited till she retired to do anything that walked the line."

And it was true, the small things they _did_ know about SHIELD, it seemed like a lot of it happened once the founders of it had retired. New blood meant new rules, new lessons, new procedures. It was worrying how much SHIELD had changed once Peggy had retired, almost like it was intentional.

"We're going to have to be very careful, aren't we?" Olivia looked at him.

He nodded, sighing, "If they think we're on to something, I don't doubt they'd find a way to shut us up."

It was hard to think that Fury would go so far as to have someone take them out, like Natasha or another STRIKE team member, but the man seemed to be back and forth with the role they played in his organization. One the one hand, he wanted the two super soldiers with SHIELD, but only if they did as he said and didn't disobey orders. Once they started to, it was like he had no qualms threatening them to keep them in line. That was not an organization they wanted to be a part of. He gave in, but only if he thought it would pacify them and even then he probably hadn't told them everything.

In one sense, they could understand his logic abut no one person knowing everything going on, that was how HYDRA had fallen. They had captured Zola and he had revealed everything about HYDRA's plans, because he knew all of them. But what did it matter in the larger scale? If anyone was going to be trying to get information out of anyone, it wouldn't be a grunt on the ground, but someone much higher up, like Fury himself, who _did_ know everything.

"Whatever happens," Steve reached out to her, taking her hand, "I've got your back, Liv, always."

She smiled up at him, nodding, "As I have yours. No one is going to harm Captain America when his medic is nearby."

He chuckled at that, deciding to try and turn the conversation to a lighter topic, "Thanks for those French lessons though," he added.

When they had settled down a little more, they had gotten to talking about the languages she knew. Lying in hospital and reading books, she had more than enough time to learn new things. Some of the nurses who tended to her had not been native to England and she had gotten a chance to become quite fluent in one or two other languages. French had been one, and then Italian, with a passing knowledge of Spanish.

They'd played a small game during the war, where she would teach him some words and phrases in them to pass the time or distract him or get his mind off something. Now that the war was over, he'd been taking those lessons a bit more seriously, starting with French. From what he heard of it, it was the 'language of love' and he really did love Olivia with everything he had.

"You were quite good," she remarked, having heard him speak a few words briefly through the comm..

"Well I had a great teacher," he smiled, reaching out to tug her to him, winding his arms around her.

"Did you now?"

"Mhmm," he nodded, "She's a real special gal, my best girl. Really got me motivated to learn."

"I'm sure she's happy to know that."

"Oh yeah. In fact I even tried to learn a few things on my own, to surprise her."

"Did you?" she raised an eyebrow, smiling as she draped her arms around his shoulders, "And what, pray tell, have you learned?"

"Well…a couple new words and phrases."

"Such as?"

"Votre sourire est magnifique," he began, smiling at her blush at his compliment, "Tu as de beaux yeux. Je ne peux pas vivre sans toi. Tu es l'amour de ma vie, and one more."

"Which is?"

"It was apparently a really popular song a few years ago," he grinned, "Voulez vous coucher avec moi?"

"Steve!" Olivia lightly hit him on the shoulder for that, hiding her face in her hands and blushing.

"It's a song!" he laughed, "It's part of a song, I swear."

"Still, that doesn't mean it's a song that should be sung," she huffed playfully.

"So?"

"So what?"

"Song or not, it IS a question?" he chuckled, waggling his eyebrows in a jest.

She peaked at him from between her fingers, not giving him a full answer beyond taking his hand and leading him off as he laughed.

A/N: From what google translate tells me: Votre sourire est magnifique-Your smile is beautiful, Tu as de beaux yeux-You have beautiful eyes, Je ne peux pas vivre sans toi-I cannot live without you, Tu es l'amour de ma vie-You are the love of my life. And, I think most of us probably know Voulez vous coucher avec moi-Do you want to sleep with me?

Oh Steve, you charmer, you eager beaver you, Bucky would be so proud ;) I hope you all liked that little nod to Peggy's advice to Sharon that we see in Civil War, she had to get it from somewhere, and I feel like she learned it during the war and seeing what her best friend (and herself) were dealing with :)

But lol, Natasha, she's a bit too invested in their relationship, asking about weddings and all that jazz, I can't see her letting it go till they set a date though lol :) Though it DOES bring up a question, they are both a bit old-fashioned, so how are they as together as they appear to be? :/ Sharing an apartment, a bed, that's quite modern of them... ;)

Some notes on reviews...

There's something very nice about Olivia being faster, and perhaps even stronger, than Steve. He really is the face of the experiment, the one most notice and remember and fawn over. So I wanted Olivia to have just that extra bit to her since she was more 'in the background' of people's notice :) And it's so her personality too, she IS faster than him, but she doesn't flaunt it or make a big thing of it or brag about it, she'll tease Steve in playful ways, but not upstage him. It's also a bit of a parallel to Steve's beginning, he now has someone who can keep up with him where most can't, yet he has to work a bit more to keep up with Olivia like with his old training group :)

Congrats on your final year! :D My last year of high school was my favorite, I hope you have a great one too! :D

I really can't wait for the Kona stories either :) It's something I really enjoy about Kona and Athena, the portrayal of Loki, in one he's the true villain but in the other he's the misunderstood character, it's great to be able to look at both sides of his story and what having someone who loves and believes in him can do to him :) I'll be posting Kona's Ragnarok shortly after this story is over ;)

It's definitely going to be very had on Liv, the moments with Peggy. We're really going to see the full brunt of it in Civil War though, I think we all know which scene I mean :'( But we'll see glimpses here, small changes that come about due to her friendship with Peggy, and even how her story with Peggy has small parallels to Steve's with Bucky-Winter Soldier :(


	3. Struggles

Struggles

Olivia held tight to Steve as they breezed down the roads on his motorcycle. It became clear to her that the confrontation with Fury and the worries he had about the direction SHIELD was heading in were weighing on him more than he wanted to let on. She knew it without him saying it when they came to the Smithsonian Museum, even more so when they entered the exhibit dedicated to Major Britannia and Captain America.

Apparently it had been an agreement between their countries that any official exhibit of one must also feature the other, to show the continued partnership and friendship between the two countries.

The fact that they were there said more to her about what Steve was feeling than anything else. She had wanted to visit the exhibit when she first heard it was open, and he had been curious to go as well. But after that brief visit, Steve seemed to only visit it when he'd had some sort of disagreement with SHIELD or Fury. He had told her after the first time that coming there helped remind him why he kept fighting, why he stayed with SHIELD, who he was protecting and whose memory he did this in honor of. The trips had become more frequent the last month or so, this last mission hadn't helped.

She reached out and took his hand as they wandered through the exhibit, both of them taking care to be as inconspicuous as possible. Steve had donned a baseball cap while she was wearing a hoodie, as the kids called it these days. She had tried wearing a hair cover and sunglasses the first time, which had been the opposite of inconspicuous, though Steve had been very sweet and told her she looked like a movie star. Still, she was trying to blend in a bit more, hence the jeans and 'hoodie' she was wearing now. They were quite uncomfortable, the jeans, she would have to speak to Natasha about not sneaking such restrictive clothing into her closet.

Actually she would have to speak to Natasha about not sneaking clothing into her closet period, it was rather alarming that she was able to do so.

"Symbols to their nations," one of the tour guides was saying to a small group as they passed, "Heroes to the world. The story of Major Britannia and Captain America is one of honor, bravery, romance, and sacrifice."

Olivia had to hide her smile into Steve's shoulder when a portion of the girls in the passing group let out sighs and smiles at the 'romance' aspect of it. She pressed her forehead to his shoulder, shaking it when he chuckled into her ear.

"That was one of the better parts of our story," he murmured, dropping a kiss to the top of her hair before she pulled away. He lifted her left hand, which he was holding, and pressed a kiss to her knuckles as well.

"Denied enlistment due to poor health," one of the narration parts of the displays spoke as they passed, "Steven Rogers was chosen by Major Britannia for a program unique in the annals of American warfare. One that would transform him into one of the world's first super soldiers…"

"Looks like you have an admirer," Olivia whispered to him, nodding ahead to where a young boy was gaping, staring with recognition.

"Either that or he's taken with your beauty," he remarked, laughing when she lightly smacked him on the arm, before putting a finger to his lips for the boy to keep quiet. The boy grinned and nodded, hurrying away.

They came over to another display, a monitor with old footage of the war playing on a loop, "In this rare footage," the narrator was saying, "Everyone's favorite warrior, Captain America, and the sweetheart of the UK, Major Britannia..."

Olivia sighed and looked away from it, following Steve towards a display where mannequins were stationed, wearing their old uniforms, the Howling Commandos uniforms on either side of them, "Oh did they HAVE to?" she nearly groaned, seeing the monstrosity that was her very first uniform on such blatant display.

"You know, I never got to actually SEE you in it," Steve remarked, not in person at least. He'd seen a photo of her wearing it, but not her.

"Nor shall you," she huffed, "Of all the things to be destroyed during the war, _that_ had to survive."

"Battle tested," the display began to speak, sensing a new audience approaching, "Captain America and his Howling Commandos quickly earned their stripes. Assisted by their designated medic, Major Britannia, their mission was to take down HYDRA, the Nazi rogue science division."

"Of all the things to be lost during the war," Steve sighed as they came to the next set up, an entire section dedicated just to Bucky, as he deserved.

Olivia squeezed his hand more as the display lit up, the narration starting as footage of Steve and Bucky laughing and smiling played, "Best friends since childhood, Bucky Barnes and Steven Rogers were inseparable on both schoolyard and battlefield. Barnes is the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country."

Olivia swallowed hard when they came to the next display dedicated to the members of the SSR and its agents, Peggy's footage was up, an older looking version of her, interviewed about the war and about them.

"That was a difficult winter," Peggy was saying, though there was a soft smile on her face, "A…remarkable one too. A blizzard had trapped half our battalion behind the German line. Liv and…" she paused, clearing her throat, "Major Williams and Captain Rogers had just returned from a brief leave, hadn't even hesitated to jump right back in. They fought their way through a HYDRA blockade that had pinned our allies down for months. Together they saved over a thousand men, including the man who would...who would become my husband as it turned out. Even after they died, they were still changing my life."

"Well done, Peg," Olivia murmured, her heart clenching painfully in her chest as she looked at photos of Peggy and other SSR agents on the wall around the monitor. One day, sooner than she would ever have liked, Peggy would have a section of her own in this exhibit, much like Bucky, for all her work during the war and after.

"She kept her promise," Steve looked at Olivia, "She found a way to be happy."

Olivia nodded at that, "She did," she swallowed hard, taking a breath, and squeezing his hand as she looked to him as well, "As did I."

Steve smiled, leaning down to press a quick kiss to her lips, "Me too."

~8~

Steve sat close beside Olivia, his arm tight around her in support, knowing how hard this was for her as she reached out a hand, holding one of Peggy's frail ones in her own. They had gone to visit Peggy in her living facility, after Olivia had changed into something more her, wanting to make it easier on Peggy to see her friend as she remembered her and not in such modern garb. A simple brown, pleated skirt that went to her knees, with a white blouse, similar to the military uniforms she and Peggy used to wear but not exact. The woman was reclined on a bed in a dim room, smiling at them as they told her about their latest mission, though now they were on the topic of the exhibit they'd just visited.

"I am so proud of you, Peggy," Olivia was telling her gently, "Not just for your work with SHIELD, but everything," she glanced over at the family photos Peggy kept by her bedside. Of her husband, her children, grandchildren, extended family. There was a trifold one, of the two of them as children, then in the army together, and one of her with Steve that Peggy had taken.

"Mmm," Peggy hummed to herself, "I have lived a life. My only regret is that you didn't get to live yours," she looked at them both, "Mr. and Mrs. Rogers."

Olivia let out a small laugh at that, shaking her head, her thoughts drifting to Natasha a moment and how she kept asking when they'd be getting married. Peggy had often done the same, teased them during the war, asking when Steve would 'make an honest woman' out of her best mate. But it was a sign, at least, that Peggy recognized Steve this time and how important he was to her.

"What is it?" Peggy asked, her gaze falling to Steve when she noticed his sad expression.

Steve sighed, not wanting to take up Olivia's remaining time with her friend, but she gave him an encouraging smile and a nod that it was alright, "For as long as I can remember," he began, "I just wanted to do what was right. I guess I'm not quite sure what that is anymore. And I thought I could throw myself back in and follow orders, serve. It's just not the same."

Peggy gave a small chuckle at that, "Always so dramatic," she looked at Olivia, "How do you put up with that."

"I love him," Olivia said simply.

"That would do it," Peggy agreed, before focusing back on Steve, "You both saved the world. We rather...mucked it up."

"It's not so bad," Olivia squeezed her hand in reassurance.

"Knowing that you helped found SHIELD is half the reason we stay," Steve agreed.

Peggy took a deep breath, "The world has changed and none of us can go back. All we can do is our best, and sometimes the best that we can do is to start over."

Olivia quickly jumped up when Peggy began to cough, hurrying to gather a glass of water for her, "Here, Peggy, drink…" she trailed off when Peggy's expression shifted, staring at her with wide eyed awe, tears, and shock.

Steve reached out a hand to take Olivia's, knowing what that expression meant, having seen it far too many times already.

"Liv?" Peggy breathed, sounding as though this was the first time she was seeing her best friend since the war.

Olivia blinked rapidly to try and keep the tears away as she nodded, "Yeah, it's me, Peg."

"You're alive!" Peggy gasped, looking between the two of them, "Both of you! You...you came...you came back."

"Yeah, Peggy," Steve nodded, putting his arm back around Olivia as she sat, squeezing her closer to him as they were forced to watch Peggy's tired mind show its age.

"It's been so long," Peggy began to weep, reaching for Olivia's hand, "So long. I thought you were dead."

"I know, Peg," Olivia's voice broke as she took Peggy's hand once more, "I know. I'm so sorry. There wasn't any other way."

"You're alright though?" she asked.

"Yeah," she nodded, "We're alright, a lot to get used to."

"We, um, stopped by the Smithsonian," Steve added, knowing it was important for Olivia to leave Peggy on a happier emotion than the tears at seeing them, even if it meant repeating a conversation again, "It's amazing, all you've done…"

~8~

Steve and Olivia slowly approached where Sam was speaking with a group of other veterans, clearly in the middle of a PTSD session. They stopped a respectful distance away, not wanting to interrupt, not wanting to make the meeting about them when it was meant to help the other veterans.

"The thing is I think it's getting worse," one of the women was saying, "A cop pulled me over last week, he thought I was drunk. I swerved to miss a plastic bag. I thought it was an IED."

Sam nodded, showing it wasn't foolish or laughable, but understandable and something they could all relate to, nothing to be ashamed of, "Some stuff you leave there, other stuff you bring back. It's our job to figure out how to carry it. Is it gonna be in a big suitcase or in a little man-purse? It's up to you."

Sam glanced over and spotted them there, giving them a nod, before he turned to say his final farewells to the group.

"I'll see you next week," the woman spoke to him as she passed him.

"Yeah," he agreed.

"Yeah."

Sam gave her a smile, leaving the group to gather their things and to speak to each other as they often did after the sessions, sometimes it took more than just one session, sometimes they felt they couldn't speak up during it. So it was always his intention to let them have some time to talk without being on the spot. He made his way over to the two super soldiers, "Look who it is," he smiled, shaking their hands, "The running man and the medic."

"Caught the last few minutes," Steve remarked, "It's pretty intense."

"You're doing a wonderful thing for them," Olivia added.

"Thanks," Sam nodded, feeling just a little swell of pride at their praise, "But it's more them than me. We all got the same problems. Guilt, regret."

"You lose someone?" Steve eyed him for the last words, ones that sounded far too personal.

"My wingman, Riley. Flying a night PJ rescue op, nothing we hadn't done a thousand times before, till RPG knock Riley's dumb ass out of the sky. Nothing I could do. It's like I was up there just to watch."

"Oh Sam," Olivia let out a breath, squeezing Steve's hand at the same time, just knowing his mind had gone to the loss of Bucky, "We're so sorry."

"After that, I had really hard time finding a reason for being over there, you know?"

"But you're happy now, back in the world?" Steve asked, thinking back to his own moment after the loss of Bucky, when he wondered why he should keep fighting and how to do it, how Olivia had helped him through that.

Sam gave them a small smile, "Hey, the number of people giving me orders is down to about zero. So, hell, yeah."

They had only just started to chuckle at how clearly pleased he was by that when a voice spoke, "Oh my god, it's Major Williams."

They looked over to see two of the group members had spotted them, a man and a different woman.

Olivia looked between Sam and Steve, "Excuse me," she murmured, "I'll just be a mo…"

Steve smiled as he shook his head, watching as she went over to greet the two individuals, only for the woman to practically throw herself at Olivia, hugging her tightly as she broke down in tears.

"I would say it's funny that the Brit gets more attention than Captain America," Sam began, "But Sophie's been a fan of Major Britannia since she was a kid. Got into the army as a medic because of the work she did during the war. Saved her grandfather, apparently, at one point."

"That's Liv," Steve nodded, always beyond pleased when other people recognized Olivia's accomplishments. It was something unique to their roles in the war. He was recognized and thanked on a national level, for his service, but on a general sense. When it came to Olivia, her recognition usually came on a more personal level, with people who were directly affected by her actions thanking her.

Sam watched as Olivia pulled away, ever so gently, speaking with the woman and making her tear up again, but her chest swell with pride too. It was clear the woman was complimenting her for her own efforts in battle too. He glanced over at Steve, thinking more about the last question the man had had for him, "Are you two thinking about getting out?"

Steve took a deep breath and let it out, "No. I don't know," he admitted, "Liv would be an incredible doctor one day."

She studied medical books, researched all the new techniques to treat wounds in battle, and he was sure, with the right funding from SHIELD, if they retired and she had the time, they could work something out and she'd have the chance to excel at medical school and training. She was born to be a healer, he was sure of that.

What would become of HIM was another question, all his life he'd wanted to make a difference, be a soldier.

He supposed it was one reason they had wandered over to visit Sam, to see what became of other soldiers when they stopped being one. What was life like after the fighting was over? He'd wanted a glimpse of it, but he also knew it was helpful to Olivia to know it wasn't just the two of them struggling, that they weren't abnormal to still be haunted by the war. There was always this pressure that the two of them had to be symbols, strong, couldn't break down or show weakness. As a result they could only really talk to each other about it. Olivia always tried to help him first, the medic in her, but he knew she struggled with more nightmares than he did, more guilt, over the soldiers she hadn't been able to save on the field. For the most part he had been stationed with the Commandos, he hadn't lost a single man save Bucky near the end. Olivia had been recalled a few times to assist in other battles, she saw more death than he did that last year.

"To be honest, I don't know what I would do with myself if I did," Steve concluded, shaking himself from his thoughts.

"Ultimate fighting?" Sam suggested, earning a laugh from Steve, "It's just a great idea off the top of my head. But seriously, you could do whatever you want to do. What makes you happy?"

"Liv," he answered promptly.

Sam chuckled, "Profession wise. Hobbies? Interests?"

Steve shook his head, "I don't know."

"I'm sure you'll figure it out," he patted Steve on the shoulder, seeing Olivia heading back over after taking a selfie with his two group members, "Guy like you could do anything."

"Thanks," Steve smiled at him, Sam giving Olivia a small salute before heading back to the meeting area to see if any other members wanted to speak to him alone.

"Police officer," Olivia spoke when she reached him, "Fireman. Defense teacher. Artist…"

"What?" he looked at her.

"I can't see you not helping others," she shrugged, winding an arm around his waist, having heard the end of their conversation, "I can't see you being inactive."

"And artist fits in there how?" he laughed, putting his arm around her shoulder as they walked off, considering her suggestions.

"You're amazing at sketching," she shrugged again, "I wouldn't have kept them all if they weren't."

Steve chuckled, shaking his head at her, he was sure she would have kept them all even if they were rubbish, just because she loved him.

~8~

Steve and Olivia made their way down the hall of their apartment building, heading for their door when one of their neighbors came out of their own apartment, her phone at her ear, laundry in a basket in her arms.

"That's so sweet," she was saying over the phone, "That is so nice that they came to visit," she glanced over at the two of them as they approached, winking at them, "Hey. I gotta go, though. Ok, bye," she shook her head at them, "My aunt, she's kind of an insomniac when she gets excited, like when her best friend visits her."

"She wouldn't be much a best mate if she didn't visit whenever she could," Olivia countered.

The woman rolled her eyes, but nodded.

"Hey, if you want, you're welcome to use our machine," Steve offered easily, "Might be cheaper than the one in the basement."

"Thank you," she smiled at them, "But I already have a load in downstairs, and, uh...you really don't want my scrubs in your machine. I've just finished orientation in the infectious diseases ward, so…"

Olivia's smile began to fall as she heard that. It was a rather flimsy excuse not to enter their apartment, she was fairly certain scrubs that were exposed to the infectious disease ward would be disinfected or cleaned at the hospital, not returned to a civilian location. There was a reason she didn't want to enter.

"Everything alright?" Olivia asked, "You ok?"

"Yeah," she nodded, "I should check my stuff. Though, speaking of stuff," she gave them a meaningful look, "I think you left your stereo on."

"Oh, right," Steve nodded, the two of them now understanding, "Thank you."

She gave them a nod before turning to head down the stairs, leaving them to turn a suspicious eye to their apartment. It wasn't Natasha in there, she thrived on trying to startle them with her random appearances, she wouldn't turn their music on and warn them. But who else would it be? They glanced at each other, before Steve took her hand and led her down the hall towards the fire escape.

~8~

Steve quickly looked around the apartment as he snuck in through the window, off the fire escape. He held a hand back behind him to help Olivia through after him, the woman grabbing his shield to hand it to him at the same time he had nicked her batons off a desk to give to her as well. They inched their way into the darkened apartment, seeing their record player was going…with someone sitting on the couch beside it.

"Director Fury?" Olivia frowned at him.

"I don't remember giving you a key," Steve added, not dropping the shield yet.

Fury scoffed, "You really think I'd need one? My wife kicked me out."

"You're married?" Olivia shook her head, a bit lost. Of all the places for Fury to go if this wife of his kicked him out, their apartment was not high up on that list. So he was there for a reason, but what? She glanced around, tapping Steve on the shoulder and nodding behind them in a signal that she was going to check the other rooms of the apartment, the bathroom, their bedroom, the closets.

He nodded, exchanging his shield for her batons, wanting her to have more instant protection if someone jumped out at her. He looked back at Fury, moving so he could keep Olivia in one corner of his eye, "We didn't know that."

"A lot of things you don't about me," Fury remarked.

"I know, Nick," Steve sighed, "That's the problem."

Olivia made her way back, they didn't have a very big place, and with their advanced hearing and senses, it was quick work checking for any others hiding there. She patted Steve's back as she neared, shaking her head to say there was no one there but them. Steve gave her a nod as well, backing up to the light switch and flicking it on.

Olivia gasped lightly, seeing Fury appeared to be quite injured, like he had been in a major firefight and only just escaped with his life. Fury quickly held a finger to his lips for them not to speak and pointed at the light. Steve turned it off as Olivia moved to grab her medical pack, passing Steve back his shield so she could make her way to Fury's side to try and treat some of the wounds she could see in the dim light.

Fury pulled his phone out and typed something in it for Olivia to see 'ears everywhere.' She frowned at that, but turned to Steve, pointing at her ear and making a wide, swirling motion to let him know the gist of the message, that the room was bugged. It wasn't quite sign language, but a crude form of it they had developed during the war with the Commandos, just very basic ones.

"I'm sorry to have to do this," Fury continued, "But I had no place else to crash."

Olivia straightened at the next text, 'SHIELD compromised,' and looked at Steve, holding up her arm like he did for his shield and put a finger, parallel to the ground, under her neck, letting him know SHIELD was out of the question, that they may have done this to Fury.

"Who else knows about your wife?" Steve asked, understanding his wife was code for SHIELD.

Olivia gestured to the three of them at Fury's next message of 'just us.'

"Just...my friends," Fury stated.

"Is that what we are?"

"That's up to you," Fury spoke, opening his mouth to say more, when three shots rang out, firing right at Fury.

Olivia gasped and let out a scream of startlement, jumping back in reaction, before rushing to tend to Fury, "Go!" she called to Steve as he lifted his shield in protection, tossing her the batons just before she was hefting Fury into the next room for more cover.

Steve nodded and rushed closer to the window, trying to peer out and see if he could spot the shooter.

Olivia looked back down at Fury as she got him positioned when he pressed something into her hand, a flashdrive, "Don't...trust...anyone," he wheezed, before his eye rolled back and he lost consciousness.

"Liv!" a voice shouted as the door was broken down, "Steve?"

"...over here," Olivia called, just barely stopping herself from shouting out 'Sharon!' first.

Sharon Carter, Peggy's great-niece, their neighbor, rushed over to help assist her, her gun drawn for more protection, though once she was close enough, Olivia activated her batons' shield program to keep them and Fury safe while they worked on him.

"He's out?" Sharon asked quickly, kneeling beside Olivia.

She nodded, knowing why she'd asked. Fury, as far as they knew, had no idea that they were aware Sharon Carter had been assigned as their protective duty and monitor. They hadn't _just_ started to visit Peggy, they had been going to see her regularly, as often as they could, since they got to DC. Peggy loved to talk about her family, Sharon came up frequently, and they had met the girl once when she hadn't expected them to be there. She had gone into the Olive Branch of SHIELD, trained as a medic, like her 'Aunt Liv' as her Aunt Peggy always called her, for the two were as good as sisters than mere friends. But she'd taken more to the active lines of duty. So she _was_ technically a nurse, she hadn't lied about that, but she was a more specialized agent of SHIELD in a broader sense.

It explained why she hadn't burst into their apartment with them when she noticed the music. Whoever was in there would have questioned why she was that close and familiar with them as she didn't usually go into their apartment normally and she had feared if _Fury_ knew that _they_ knew why she was there, she'd be reassigned. She didn't want to pass up the chance to work with Major Britannia and Captain America, with Olivia and Steve.

Sharon nodded and grabbed a radio from her belt, "Foxtrot is down, he's unresponsive. I need EMTs."

"Do you have a twenty on the shooter?" another agent called back.

Steve looked out the window, managing to spot him finally, "Tell him I'm in pursuit!" he called, before smashing through the window and giving chase after the figure that raced ahead of him, trusting Olivia and Sharon to stabilize Fury while he dealt with this man.

The man, however, was skilled. Steve chased him through an office building, smashing right through the walls as the man appeared to punch them down as he went. He followed close behind, managing to catch him at the roof. He hurled his shield at the assassin, only for the man to turn and catch it in one swift move.

In the light, Steve could make out the man had a metal arm with a red star embedded in it. The man returned the attack, hurling the shield back at Steve and jumping off the building as he turned to catch it. He ran to the edge of the building and looked down for the man, but he was nowhere to be seen. He shook his head and turned to run back to the apartment.

~8~

Steve looked over when Natasha entered the hospital room, he was standing with his arm around Olivia, the woman's front stained with Fury's blood, her hands only wiped clean, the two of them watching through a window as doctors operated on Fury.

"Is he gonna make it?" she asked.

"We don't know," Steve stated.

"Medical opinion?" she turned to Olivia for that.

"I did all I could to stabilize him," she murmured, "He was shot three times."

"Tell me about the shooter."

"He's fast and strong," Steve described, "Had a metal arm," he glanced over as Maria Hill entered the room too.

"Ballistics?"

"Three slugs, no rifling," Maria reported, "Completely untraceable."

"Soviet-made."

Olivia and Steve glanced over when Natasha's words were a statement and not a question, like she knew it would be that make.

"Yeah," Maria confirmed.

But their attention was pulled back to Fury as his situation worsened, the heart rate monitor jumping.

"He's in V-tach!" one of the male nurses called.

"Crash cart coming in," a female nurse reported.

The attending doctor looked over, "Nurse, help me with the drape."

"BP is dropping!" the male nurse called.

"Defibrillator!" the doctor ordered, the four of them watching as Fury began to flatline, "I want you to charge him at one hundred."

"Don't do this to me, Nick," Natasha murmured.

"Stand back! Three, two, one. Clear!" the doctor shocked him, causing him to jolt, but there was no change, "Pulse?"

"No pulse," the male nurse reported, something that was confirmed by another doctor.

"Ok, 200, please. Stand back! Three, two, one. Clear!" he shocked Fury once more, "Give me epinephrine! Pulse?"

"Negative."

"Don't do this to me, Nick," Natasha repeated, not even noticing when Olivia reached out to grab her arm in support, "Don't do this to me."

They could only watch as the doctors and nurses tried their best to revive Fury, but the flatline persisted, until there was only one option left.

"What's the time?" the doctor asked, as Steve looked away, tightening his hold on Olivia.

"1:03, Doctor," the female nurse reported.

Olivia could only stare through the window with a frown on her face and tears in her eyes. This couldn't be happening, she had managed to stabilize him, she had saved Coulson, Fury couldn't be...

The doctor sighed, calling it, "Time of death, 1:03 a.m."

But it was.

Director Fury was dead.

A/N: I couldn't see Olivia just visiting Peggy every so often but as often as she could, and I felt like it was reasonable, given how close Sharon was to her great-Aunt, that they'd run into each other at some point. That and if there was one person Peggy would talk about her family to it would be Liv, she'd show her pictures of the life she had since the war, and Sharon would be among them if they hadn't met first. There was just no way, to me, that Olivia wouldn't know Sharon for who she was :)

I know there's a lot of 'but HOW?' when it comes to how Sharon is Peggy's great-niece. Peggy is her great-aunt, a great aunt is your mother or father's aunt. Which many would take to mean Michael, Peggy's brother, HAS to have been alive and had a family or had a child before he died. And I know Season 3 of Agent Carter was apparently supposed to go in that direction, that he didn't die during the war or something. But since it never aired, MY thoughts on it are...it doesn't have to be PEGGY's brother's child, but perhaps Peggy's HUSBAND's brother's child.

Simplifying it because it still confuses me lol, and using the male line just for pattern: Sharon has a father. Her father, of course, has a father (Sharon's grandfather). Sharon's grandfather has a brother who married Peggy Carter. To Sharon's grandfather, his sister-in-law is Peggy Carter. To Sharon's father, Peggy is his Aunt because she is his uncle's wife. So for Sharon, that makes Peggy her great-aunt.

I think it's the Carter surname that throws people off, but we can just assume Sharon changed her last name in honor or her aunt. At one point she says she never TOLD anyone she was related to Peggy Carter, so it must have just been a common enough name that no one really thought of that connection or asked about it ;)

But this chapter, poor Stevia :( First a walk down memory lane, then seeing Peggy ailing, then other suffering PTSD, and then the attack on Fury? What a day :( But did anyone else crack a smile when Peggy teased Olivia and Steve about marriage too :) Makes me wonder if Natasha's been to visit her also ;)

Some notes on reviews...

For all of Steve's seeming love of 'songs' you'd think he'd have 'put a ring on it' by now ;) Whether he has a ring or not, we'll have to wait and see ;)

I can say, by the end of this story we'll know if there're any wedding plans ;)

I could see Tony insisting on walking Olivia down the aisle lol :)

Lol, the wedding talk mostly comes from Natasha going 'you've been together 70 years, don't you think you ought to tie the knot already?' Also a little parallel to Peggy's teasing from the war about when they were going to finally get married :)

I don't want to say too much about Steve and Olivia's nuptials just yet, but I can say we'll find out by the end of this story what's up with that ;)


	4. Friends or Foes?

A/N: There's a note about the posting schedule for this story at the end, minor change to it.

~8~

Friends or Foes?

They had been allowed a few last moments with the body, and so they came to stand in the same room as Fury, lying on a slab. Olivia stood beside him, her hand resting on his as she frowned down at him, Steve and Natasha a few steps back. Natasha had tears running down her face though she tried her best to keep her face from mirroring her internal grief as well. Steve had put an arm around her in comfort, his eyes more on Olivia than Fury.

He could read her expressions like a book, every frown or smile, every crinkle of her eye or scrunch of her nose. He knew every look, and the one she had now put him on edge. She was looking at Fury, frowning, her eyebrows scrunched together as though there were something wrong or something that was confusing her.

He had seen her grieve, had seen her upset, and she wasn't displaying any of those characteristics despite Fury being dead in front of them. Granted he wasn't their favorite person at the moment, but they had to believe he was a good, or at least decent, man at heart. She would have mourned for him, he knew that, she had too kind a heart not to, yet she wasn't.

Worse yet, he couldn't ask her what was wrong. He was sure he was the only one who had noticed her peculiar reaction and he didn't want to draw attention to it. All he knew right now was that something was wrong with SHIELD and Fury had wanted to keep what he told them quiet. He didn't want to risk one of the other agents seeing something or hearing something and growing suspicious. He had to hold his tongue till he could get her completely alone.

He had been watching Olivia so intently he was sure he would have missed the brief tick that flashed across her face if he wasn't. She looked over at him and he stiffened, thinking she was about to say something when the door opened behind him and Maria stepped in instead.

"I need to take him," she told them grimly.

Olivia nodded, saying nothing more as she stepped away, allowing Natasha to have a moment to approach the director herself. Steve went with her, Olivia putting a hand on Natasha's shoulder in more comfort as the woman gently touched Fury's head, before she turned to storm out of the room.

"Tasha?" Olivia called as she followed the woman into the hall with Steve.

"Hey…" Steve spoke, when Natasha suddenly turned to them.

"Why was Fury in your apartment?" she demanded.

"We don't know," Olivia began, only for Rumlow to approach and interrupt.

"Major, Cap, they want you back at SHIELD," he informed them.

"Yeah, give us a second," Steve brushed it off.

"They want you now."

"Ok," Steve said a bit more forcefully, waiting till Rumlow stepped away before facing Natasha once more.

"You're a terrible liar," was all she murmured to them before turning to walk off.

"She's not wrong," Olivia remarked quietly to herself, though it was partly true. They didn't know exactly why Fury had come to them, they could only guess and speculate with the brief facts he had given them.

"STRIKE team," Olivia and Steve glanced over at Rumlow, able to hear the voice of Sitwell in his earpiece with their augmented hearing, "Escort Major Williams and Captain Rogers back to SHIELD immediately for questioning."

"I told them," Rumlow reported.

Steve glanced at Olivia as she put her hands in the pockets of her skirt, giving him a meaningful look and twitch of her arm. He had glimpsed the flashdrive Natasha had gotten for Fury in her hand in the chaos of SHIELD getting Fury out of their apartment. She hadn't hidden it from him but from everyone else. He could read in her expression now that she was anxious about keeping it on her if they were about to be questioned. He looked around, trying to find some place to hide it, when he spotted a vending machine across from them being restocked. He looked over at Rumlow, who was patiently waiting for them but not paying too much attention to them, and nodded towards it.

Olivia glanced over, before sliding the drive to Steve as she moved past him to speak to Rumlow about what they knew of who attacked Fury, distracting him while Steve dealt with the drive. Rumlow was not forthcoming with any information, but it was just as well, she didn't fully trust anything he would have told her either.

"Let's go," Steve spoke as he rejoined them.

"Yeah," Rumlow nodded, calling out into the earpieces, "STRIKE, move it out," as they began to leave.

~8~

Olivia and Steve had been given the chance to change back into their SHIELD uniforms, neither of them wanting Olivia to have to stay in clothes soaked with Fury's blood longer than needed. That and there was a chance they would be sent out on a mission regarding the attack on Fury. On another, more cautious level they were not about to enter SHIELD without every advantage now that they knew it could be compromised, as Fury had warned them. They were led through the halls and into the room where Alexander Pierce was speaking to Sharon Carter.

"For whatever it's worth, you did your best," the man was speaking to her.

"Thank you, sir," Sharon murmured, turning to go and nearly stopping when she saw the two of them approaching, "Major Williams, Captain Rogers."

"Neighbor," Steve replied with a monotoned response.

They were well aware Sharon was not supposed to have let them know who she was, to the extent that she had been assigned to help keep them safe. They were meant to only know her as their neighbor, the nurse. They weren't even to know her real name, instead identifying her as 'Kate.' They went along with it while in the apartment building, not wanting her to get in trouble, but also not about to just disregard or ignore Peggy's great-niece. They would meet up with her every so often outside of the building, either at a small bar or a non-SHIELD gym or while visiting Peggy. While she wasn't biologically related to Peggy herself, the woman being her great-aunt via being her father's uncle's wife, they knew Peggy had always been a prominent figure in the family she'd created. The pair were close, with Sharon following in her aunt's footsteps by joining SHIELD. Sharon had a deep admiration for the woman, going so far as to change her last name to Carter in honor of her. It was a common enough name and Peggy had been retired so long that no one really made the connection between the blonde American and the brunette Brit.

Right now, no one could know that they knew who she was. And they were not about to let it slip. While Sharon was not related to them, because of the stories Peggy had told her as she grew up, she knew Olivia as 'Aunt Liv' which made Steve something of an uncle by association. And they considered her family as well, any family of Peggy's was one they would do all they could to protect and guard.

"Ah, Major, Captain," Pierce called out as he held out his hand to shake theirs, "I'm Alexander Pierce."

"Pleasure," Olivia offered, not exactly comfortable when the man tried to kiss the back of her hand instead of shake it, but she may have used a bit more of her strength than normal to keep it a handshake, albeit an awkward one.

"Sir," Steve offered his own hand quickly, noticing, and equally not as pleased with, the gesture, "It's an honor."

"The honor is mine," Pierce smiled at them, "My father served in the 101st. Come on in," he stepped through a door into his office, inviting them in. He moved to a table, picking up a small photo of himself with Fury, though they both looked younger, "That photo was taken five years after Nick and I met. When I was at State Department in Bogota. ELN rebels took the embassy, and security got me out, but the rebels took hostages. Nick was deputy chief for the SHIELD station there. And he comes to me with a plan. He wants to storm the building through the sewers. I said, 'No, we'll negotiate.' Turned out the ELN didn't negotiate, so they put out a kill order. They stormed the basement, and what did they find? They find it empty. Nick had ignored my direct order and carried out an unauthorized military operation on foreign soil. He saved the lives of a dozen political officers, including my daughter."

"I'm glad your daughter was alright," Olivia remarked.

"She wouldn't have been if not for Nick."

"So you gave him a promotion," Steve guessed.

"I've never had any cause to regret it. And I hope to god I don't find any cause now," he looked at the two of them intently, "I need to know why Nick was in your apartment last night."

"We don't know," Steve spoke, recalling Natasha's words that Olivia was a terrible lair.

She was an honest woman, something he appreciated even more after all the lies he heard from SHIELD and its agents recently. She had always had to be honest, due to her ailing health, she couldn't afford to lie to her doctors or nurses. She was kind and considerate, not wanting to worry those she cared about, so she would try to make her own pain seem less when it came to them. But overall, it wasn't in her nature to be dishonest.

He had done nothing but lie in his attempts to get into the army in the first place. He could lie when he had to, to get a job, to get out of trouble, and now it was to keep them both safe.

"You know it was bugged?" Pierce eyed them.

"We did," Olivia nodded, knowing if she was too silent and let Steve answer everything that it would be equally as suspicious as her trying to lie to the man, so she would try to answer the honest questions where she could, "In the end, Director Fury was the one who told us."

"Did he tell you he was the one who bugged it?" Pierce continued, eyeing them both when they didn't reply, though it was clear they didn't know that fact. He sighed, nodding his head as though deciding something, "I want you to see something."

He led them over to a monitor and pulled up footage of Batroc, being interrogated by a SHIELD agent.

"Who hired you, Batroc?" the agent was demanding.

"Is that live?" Steve frowned.

"You captured him?" Olivia glanced over at the man, "How?"

"Yes, and yes," Pierce answered, "They picked him up last night in a not-so-safe house in Algiers."

"Are you saying he's a suspect?" Steve asked, "Assassination isn't Batroc's line."

"No, it's more complicated than that. Batroc was hired anonymously to attack the Lemurian Star and he was contacted by e-mail and paid by wire transfer. And then the money was run through seventeen fictitious accounts, the last one going to a holding company that was registered to a Jacob Veech."

"Who?" Olivia shook her head, a frown of her own on her face.

Pierce handed them a file, "Veech was a man who died six years ago. His last address was 14-35 Elmhurst Drive. When I first met Nick his mother lived at 14-37."

"And you think Director Fury hired the pirates? Why would he do that?"

"The prevailing theory was that the hijacking was a cover for the acquisition and sale of classified intelligence. The sale went sour and that led to Nick's death."

Steve snorted and shook his head, closing the file, "If you really knew Nick Fury you'd know that's not true."

Neither of them thought Fury capable of that. The man was all about protecting secrets and never letting the enemy know what was going on. For Pierce to imply that Fury had been trying to steal information to sell to their enemies? It was ridiculous.

"Why do you think we're talking?" Pierce countered, "See, I took a seat on the Council not because I wanted to but because Nick asked me to, because we were both realists. We knew that, despite all the diplomacy and the handshaking and the rhetoric, to build a really better world sometimes means having to tear the old one down. And that makes enemies. Those people that call you dirty because you got the guts to stick your hands in the mud and try to build something better. And the idea that those people could be happy today, makes me really, really angry," he looked between the two, hesitating to add but ultimately deciding to continue, "You two were the last ones to see Nick alive. I don't think that's an accident, and I don't think you do either. So I'm gonna ask again, why was he there?"

"He told us not to trust anyone," Steve spoke, recalling what Olivia had told him in the rush to get Fury to the hospital.

"I wonder if that included him."

"I'm sorry. Those were his last words. Excuse us," Steve turned, his hand resting on the small of Olivia's back to guide her out of the room with him.

"Captain," Pierce called to stop them, waiting till they looked back at him, "Somebody murdered my friend and I'm gonna find out why. Anyone gets in my way, they're gonna regret it. _Anyone_."

"Understood," Olivia remarked, turning to leave with Steve.

~8~

Steve watched as Olivia paced the hall, the two of them having walked down a few more to get farther away from Pierce's office. She was agitated about something, but she was also very concentrated, the face she usually made when she was trying to work something out, like a calculation.

"You ok?" he asked her.

It wasn't until he saw her eyes flicker up and to the side as she made a turn in her pacing that he realized she wasn't pacing out of frustration, though she was agitated still, but because she was trying to mask looking for where the security cameras were. She was trying to see who was watching and from what angles.

"I just don't understand," she spoke, turning to face him as she moved to lean back against the opposite wall from him, "Why would someone attack Director Fury?"

He could only shake his head, "He probably had a number of enemies," he stated, careful with his words, trying to take his cues from her, "It was only a matter of time before one got him."

"I did my best," she said suddenly, looking up at him, "I don't know what I did wrong. I applied pressure, I dressed the wound, sealed them as best I could, he was still breathing when the EMTs arrived…I didn't elevate the legs, I kept him covered to maintain body temperature, I started to treat his other injuries and he was stable," she blinked as she teared up, "He was _stable_ , Steve."

Steve pushed off his wall when she began to cry, his face set in a show of concern and anger at the situation, even if that wasn't fully what he felt. He had seen Olivia cry before, he had seen her upset, and the way she was reacting now, it was all for show.

When she cried, she _cried_ , tears down her cheeks, her nose clogging, her voice a bit higher than normal. She was tearing up, yes, but she wasn't as devastated as she was trying to appear to be.

She needed someone watching them to believe she was crying.

And once his arms were around her, with her face buried in his neck, he realized why.

"He had a pulse," he heard her murmur, so quietly near his ear that he was sure he was the only one who heard her.

And now he understood the crocodile tears. If she was upset it was only natural for him to comfort her, to hug her, to be close enough for her to whisper that to him without anyone else hearing or seeing or thinking anything of it.

He closed his eyes, turning his head to nuzzle more into her hair, playing up the comfort for the person watching through the cameras, and whispered back to her, "You're sure?"

"He was alive," she confirmed.

She had felt it, when she had her hand on Fury's. She had wrapped her fingers around more than the others could see, pressing gently into the underside of his wrist. It had taken longer than it ever should have, almost a full minute, before she felt it, but she had. A pulse. She had been too concentrated and focused to miss it, to mistake it for anything else.

Nick Fury, who had been declared dead, had had a pulse.

It hadn't made sense to her. The state he'd been in when the EMTs arrived, the treatment she'd given him, he had been stable even though he had fallen unconscious. There should not have been a cause for him to take that fast a turn as he had. It didn't make sense to her, because she had seen a man get shot three times during the war, she had treated him then with the meager supplies she'd had, and he had lived, he'd survived. In far worse conditions, with less advanced medical attention, and yet _Fury_ had died? She knew he shouldn't have, it had made her suspicious, it made her doubt if he had truly been as dead as he'd been declared.

She checked his pulse, that would tell her for sure if he had truly died, because it was possible he'd died. He could have had a clot or some preexisting condition she didn't know about. She had just needed to KNOW.

And now she did.

Fury had faked his death, that much was obvious. She could even guess that it had been because SHIELD would have gone after him in recovery if they thought he lived.

Who had authorized the initial attack though?

"It'll be alright," he spoke normally as he pulled away from her, reaching up to cup her cheeks and making a small show of wiping away tears that hadn't fallen, being sure to keep her at an angle where the cameras wouldn't see that fact, "We'll find out who did this and stop them."

Olivia nodded, letting Steve take her hand and guide her over to an elevator, pressing a button for it.

"Major Williams," a voice called just as the doors opened, "Captain Rogers," they looked over to see Sharon Carter approaching, "Major Williams," she looked at the woman, "Can I have a word, for a moment?"

"Is something wrong?" Olivia frowned.

"Um, I have to ask you some questions about Director Fury's medical condition from the time you discovered him in the apartment to when the EMTs arrived. They have my account, I just need to take yours for the record."

Olivia nodded, glancing over at Steve, "I'll meet you at Operations?"

He nodded, watching as the two women walked off before he turned around when the doors nearly shut again, getting in. He looked up as he called out, "Operations control," to set it in motion.

"Confirmed," the computerized voice of the elevator called, the doors starting to close only for Rumlow and two other STRIKE agents to enter with him.

"Keep all STRIKE personnel on site," Rumlow was ordering the other two.

"Understood," one nodded.

"Yes, sir," the other confirmed.

"Forensics," Rumlow called out to the elevator system.

"Confirmed," the computerized voice repeated.

"Cap," Rumlow nodded at him.

"Rumlow," Steve responded when the doors shut and the elevator began to descend.

"Major Williams going solo?"

"Debriefing with another agent," Steve answered carefully, "Medical reports."

Rumlow nodded, "Evidence Response found some fibers on the roof they want us to see. You want me to get the tac-team ready?"

"No, let's wait and see what it is first."

"Right."

Steve glanced over at the other agents around him, noticing one had his hand resting on his weapon which was odd and suspicious as there was no reason to be ready to use one in an elevator. He frowned at that but his attention was pulled away by the doors opening again, more SHIELD and STRIKE agents joining them.

"What's the status so far?" one agent was asking another.

"Administrations level," another called out to the computer.

"Confirmed," the mechanical voice replied.

"Excuse me," yet another spoke to Steve as he moved past him to stand behind the super soldier.

"I'm sorry about what happened with Fury," Rumlow remarked to Steve, "Messed up, what happened to him."

"Thank you," Steve offered, not sure what else to say.

His attention was pulled, once more, to those who joined him in the elevator. He was somewhat relaxed, which made it easy to feel when others around him were tense and he could feel it now. Practically every agent that had gotten into the elevator was tense in a way that usually signaled preparation for a fight. One man was even sweating and it was not that hot in the small space even with so many people crammed into it.

And even more joining them when the elevator stopped again and the doors opened.

"Records," one more agent called out to the computer.

"Confirmed," it repeated, the doors closing.

Steve glanced around him, realizing that the men hadn't just moved around to make more space for others, but in a strategic move to surround HIM.

He gave himself just a moment to silently thank Sharon Carter for wanting to speak to Olivia and keep her from joining him in the elevator. This was not going to be easy nor pretty, he was outnumbered, in a small space, with some of the best trained agents in the organization, all of whom had their weapons ready and likely a plan for subduing him. If Olivia had been there as well, there was no doubt they would try to use her as leverage against him or take her out first to throw him off.

He could only hope that Rumlow's comment earlier meant he hadn't known Olivia wasn't with him and that she was safe for now. SHIELD or whatever was compromising it would not risk an open attack in the middle of its halls.

He took a breath, readying himself for what was to come, and spoke, "Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?"

There was a brief moment where no one spoke, no one moved, Steve was sure no one breathed either. But then the moment was broken when one of the agents turned and immediately went on the attack, using an electric rod to try and stun Steve, make him vulnerable to the others. It knocked the wind out of him for a moment, which was enough for the others to gang up on him, grabbing at him, using all their strength to hold him down. One of the men who had entered with a briefcase disengaged the handle of it, revealing it to be a magnetic cuff which became their main focus, getting him immobile and stuck to the side of the elevator.

Steve managed to come back to himself by then, kicking out and flailing, knocking down a few others, kicking a second cuff away, but the first stuck high up above the doors, pinning his arm there. Rumlow jumped into action, using the rod to shock him once more.

~8~

Olivia was walking down a hall of offices, heading for an elevator after she finished speaking with Sharon. She had thought it was a ruse, that Sharon wished to speak to her more privately about something, but it really _had_ been asking questions about the attack on Fury for the records. It hadn't taken long at all, Sharon had been there with her after all, but she had needed a recounting of the few moments between the shooting and when she arrived to complete the report. She had just stepped past an office, when she heard a man inside, Sitwell, giving an order over the comms., "Mobilize STRIKE units, 25th floor lift," the man was saying, "We need Rogers down."

She didn't hesitate, running to the nearest stairwell and looking down, calculating the distance and her likely rate of fall, before jumping over the side of it, dropping down the middle. She reached out, wincing as she moved too slow to grab the right railing, nearly twisting her shoulder as she came to a sudden stop. She grunted, but quickly got a foothold to pull herself back up, breathing out a sigh of relief when she realized she'd made it to the 24th floor, and hopped over the railing, rushing up the single flight of stairs, slamming through the door and hurrying for the elevator.

~8~

Steve grunted and strained, kicking a few more agents away, hitting them with a fist before using his hand to try and pry himself free from the magnetic cuff. He finally managed it, using the momentum of his fall off the elevator door to knock down the remaining agents. He ducked and punched, kicked and elbowed, until every agent was down except Rumlow himself.

"Whoa, big guy," Rumlow held up his hands, "I just want you to know, Cap, this ain't personal."

Steve saw the attack coming, Rumlow and the electrified rod, managing to evade and defend himself until he could knock Rumlow out as well. He looked down at the fallen man, "It kind of feels personal," he panted. He looked over at his shield lying among the fallen agents and kicked the end of it, snapping it up and into his arm once more.

The elevator doors pinged as they opened and he tensed, nearly expecting another set of agents to fight because none of the men who entered the elevator had requested floor 25. But he relaxed minutely when he saw there was, indeed, another team sent to take him down…

But THEY had been taken down first.

He let out a low whistle, causing Olivia to spin around, her batons in her hand, but she dropped her arms quickly when she saw it was him, "Steve!" she gasped, rushing over to hug him tightly, which he returned just as strong.

Both of them couldn't help but look over the other's shoulder at the ones who had attacked them and whom they had been forced to subdue.

"I heard them give the order to take you down, I got here first and they attacked," she pulled back, glancing over her shoulder at the handful of STRIKE agents she had managed to knock out. The shield in her batons had worked when they fired their weapons at her and when that hadn't worked they had attacked physically. She didn't think they had been expecting her to fight back and so she used that to her advantage, though she had been very careful to keep her blows in check, not wanting to harm any of them if they ended up being innocent in all this.

"You did good, Liv," Steve told her, wanting to reassure her that she'd done the right thing, that stopping the agents hadn't been wrong. He knew she still struggled with not harming others, but if she hadn't fought back? He didn't want to think about what he would have seen when those doors opened. Her captured or her dead were not things he ever wanted to experience, "You did good."

She looked back down at the men in the elevator, "Are they…"

"Knocked out," he reassured her, "I don't know if they're compromised agents, or were following bad orders."

"I'm not sure which is worse," she murmured. To willingly choose to go after Captain America because you were compromised and needed to take him out so he couldn't stop you was one thing, to be a genuine agent and ordered to do so and then do it despite knowing it was wrong or that there was something suspicious about it was another.

He nodded, "We need to go, now," he told her, it was only a matter of time before more agents were ordered after them.

"This way," Olivia took his hand and pulled him off, "I've an idea."

Steve followed her to the stairwell, where she looked at him a moment before hopping over the rail and jumping down, grabbing onto a railing only a floor or two above the bottom to stop her descent, and jumping down the last few feet. She looked up at him and stepped back as he followed suit.

He tightened his grip on his shield once he was beside her, nodding at her as she readied her batons, before he ran at the door, bursting through it as they couldn't be certain there weren't any other agents waiting on the other side though they hoped their quick thinking and jumping had given them time. They had picked the right stairwell on the right side of the building, for it was the one that connected to the SHIELD garage. They raced through it to Steve's bike, and quickly got on, starting it up and gunning out of the garage.

Olivia held tight as Steve worked to avoid the obstacles ahead of them, civilians, objects, and other STRIKE agents trying to take them out. They were doing well…until a quinjet rose into the air ahead of them.

"Stand down!" the pilot of the jet called out, "Stand down," but when they made no more to do so, the machine guns of the jet began to lower, aimed right at them, "Repeat, stand down!"

Olivia gave Steve a single squeeze around his middle, letting him know she was with him to the end as he revved the motorcycle faster, doing his best to dodge bullets as it began to shoot at them.

"Ready to switch?" Steve called to her over the noise.

"I may need to use the loo first!" she remarked, but squeezed him again to signal she was ready. She moved to place one of her batons attached to the back of the bike, "Go!"

Steve hurled his shield at the jet, throwing it hard enough to get it stuck in the propellers, jamming one. He used the momentum of the bike to launch himself up at the jet himself. Olivia quickly scooted to the front, wedging her second baton in front of her and triggering the shield as she did her best to at least keep the bike going straight. She didn't have as much experience handling it as Steve, much preferring to have her arms around him, but she could manage straight lines and very wide, slow turns. And, if she knew Steve, she wouldn't have to go for long.

Indeed, Steve grabbed the shield as he reached it, yanking it out and using it to do even more damage to the craft, not stopping until it was on the verge of crashing. He looked down, catching her eye as she nodded. He jumped off the craft just as it began to go down, Olivia disengaging her front baton so Steve could drop down on the back of the bike as it raced under the craft. He quickly moved his arms around her, leaning in more to take hold of the handles and help her steer as he sped the bike away, the two of them just barely managing to escape behind the crashed vessel.

A/N: So, just to start, apologies this wasn't up yesterday, I had a second interview for a job and they asked if I'd be willing to wait there for the third interview (and who would really turn that down? lol) and...I got it :D Finally right? :D I'm so happy I finally have an income again and I'm going to get health benefits in a few months which is a relief, but it is going to affect the posting for stories. Since I won't have as much time during the weekdays, I'm going to tweak the movie-story posting schedule.

This story will be updated Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, and that's going to be the schedule for all the movie-stories. So after this with Kona and Victoria, at least for the time being.

So, basically, we'll be getting a chapter of something every single day, since I update my other stories on Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays lol. And to make up for the not-everyday posting, I'm planning to not have any gap between the next movie-story. Meaning we go right into the next story once one is done, no week or so between them. For example, this story should be finished September 23rd, then Kona's Ragnarok will start on the 25th :) Hopefully it'll all work out :)

As for this chapter, with all the wounds Olivia's treated in the war and since then, she has a fairly good idea of which ones are survivable and which ones she can't do anything for. While Steve was tracking the shooter, she was doing everything feasibly possible to treat bullet wounds using not just what she can get her hands on but her own SHIELD issued medical pack that has some more advanced things in it. To her, Fury stood a MUCH better chance of surviving than what she witnessed in the operating room. A part of her knows he COULD have preexisting conditions, she know she can't see every internal wound and she could have missed something. But she felt he had a better chance so she was partially suspicious. She needed to know for herself, if he had any pulse. Sort of like when you can't believe someone is gone till you see it for yourself or in movies how people keep doing CPR even when it's clear the person is gone and they just KEEP trying. That was her way of coping with the sudden loss, she would still hold onto that hope until she KNEW and then she could let go and try to do better next time.

It just so happened that her attempts to confirm it for her own peace of mind revealed the truth of Fury's faked death.

But it's not something she's about to blurt to just anyone, Steve yes, anyone else not a chance.

I can say that Olivia trying to guard the elevator from the STRIKE agents will be brought up again with more of her thoughts on the event, it's not going to sit right with her and she may need to talk it out a bit more. It's just not something she could really do when they were being hunted down within SHIELD itself. Once things have calmed down, she'll have time to process it all ;)

Some notes on reviews...

True, there's really only one person you can turn to who understands what it's like to be a Capsicle ;)

Oh we'll still get to see Protective Alpha Steve at some point in this series ;) But that was exactly what Steve was afraid of, anyone who's anyone knows Major Britannia and Captain America are a pair, and that she's more of the non-combatant of the two. Go after her and you weaken Steve, so he's very thankful Olivia wasn't in the elevator with him just then ;) Lol, Steve definitely was the leading authority in the movie, it's still going to come into play in Ultron ;) Oh the Bucky/OC, yeah, Steve's going to have some competition there for who waited the longest lol :)


	5. Ghosts of the Past

Ghosts of the Past

"You alright?" Steve asked as he and Olivia made their way through the halls of the hospital.

"Fine," she answered quietly, "I just don't care for these jeans."

Steve cracked a small smile despite the situation. He and Olivia always kept an extra stash of clothing in the side pouch of his motorcycle. Nothing they would mind being soiled or lost, just something to keep incase they needed a very quick change after a mission. Olivia had thrown a pair of jeans, a hoodie, and a pair of flat shoes in, similar to what he'd put in there as well. Mostly because she thought she would never need to wear it. It had been the first outfit Natasha had tried to sneak into their closet. Olivia hadn't wanted to be rude and donate it, so she'd put it as a back up outfit, only for Natasha to sneak more outfits in after.

"For what it's worth," he murmured, "I think you look good."

Olivia gave a small smile of her own, before ducking her head, her hoodie up much like Steve's was, as a pair of doctors passed them, deep in conversation. Steve began to walk faster, leading them back the way they'd come before, towards the room Fury had been tended to in, and over to the vending machine. She frowned when Steve let out a breath, staring at the machine.

"What?" she asked.

"It's gone," he muttered, tapping the glass to the row where he'd put the flashdrive behind a line of gum.

Olivia's gaze flickered to the side, seeing Natasha appear behind them in the reflection of the glass…popping a bubble of gum.

Steve didn't even hesitate to turn, grabbing her arm and pushing her into a room behind them, Olivia looking up and down the hall to make sure no one had seen and shutting the door after them, locking it to be twice as sure.

"Where is it?" Steve demanded.

"Safe," was all Natasha said.

"Tasha," Olivia gave her a firm look as she stepped over to them, reaching out to place a hand on Steve's arm so he would lighten the grip he had on the woman.

She sighed, "Here," she pulled the flashdrive out of her pocket, handing it over to Olivia, knowing Steve probably wouldn't actually lighten up till the two of them had the drive once more, "Where did you get it?"

"Why would we tell you?" Steve countered.

Natasha snorted at that, shaking her head, "Fury gave it to you," she answered for him, "Why?"

"We don't know," Olivia told her, knowing Steve was too angry she'd taken it to trust her right now, and also knowing Natasha would probably be more inclined to answer if she was getting honest answers instead of hostility. Right now Natasha was in danger just for knowing where the flashdrive was, "We don't even know what was on it."

"Do you?" Steve looked at her.

"No," Natasha answered.

"Stop lying!" Steve nearly shouted, getting tired of everyone lying to the two of them.

"I only act like I know everything, Rogers."

"I bet you knew Fury hired the pirates, didn't you?"

"Well, it makes sense," Natasha shrugged, not perturbed, "The ship was dirty, Fury needed a way in, so do you."

Olivia hadn't thought of it that way. She had been so sure that Fury wouldn't have done something like that, because of how Pierce had implied it was to sell the information to their enemies. But the way Natasha had put it…it made more sense given what she knew of Fury. If SHIELD had been compromised, he would have needed a reason and an excuse to be there, to get a team onto the base and save the data from being used by their enemies.

It also explained why they hadn't been informed Natasha was backing up the information. If it had been part of the mission, there was no telling if any compromised agents on their team might learn about it and have gone after Natasha to stop her.

She wasn't sure how she felt to think Fury had, at some point, feared they were compromised instead of someone he could trust. At least he had proven he thought them trustworthy now if he had given them the flashdrive.

"I'm not gonna ask you again," Steve spoke, his voice firm but just a little calmer now that they were getting some sort of answer from her.

"Tasha," Olivia cut in gently, "Right now, we need to know anything you can tell us. It doesn't have to be about the flashdrive or the pirates, just…something. You've got to give us something."

Natasha sighed, but nodded, "I know who killed Fury."

Steve stiffened at that, "Who?"

"Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists, the ones who do call him the Winter Soldier. He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years."

"How is that possible?" Olivia frowned.

"He's a ghost story," Steve remarked as an answer. There was no way someone could have done that many assassinations over 50 years. Given the time training and what age they might have been when they started, this person would be at least 70 years old. It had to be a ghost story, a series of assassins the enemy wanted others to believe was the same person doing all this.

"Five years ago I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran," Natasha told them, "Somebody shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff, I pulled us out, but the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer, so he shot him…straight through me," she lifted up the side of her shirt to show them a scar to the side of her stomach, "Soviet slug, no rifling. Bye-bye bikinis."

"So that's how you knew about the ammunition used on Fury," Olivia realized, thinking back to how Natasha had seemed too certain of what was used on the Director.

She nodded, "In each of the assassinations on report, it's been the same thing. Soviet slug, no rifling."

"So we find this Winter Soldier, we find out who ordered him to kill Fury," Steve reasoned.

But Natasha shook her head, "Going after him is a dead end. I know, I've tried. Like you said, he's a ghost story."

"We have at least one advantage in all this," Olivia murmured, holding up the flashdrive.

Steve nodded, "Let's find out what the ghost wants."

~8~

Natasha glanced over at Steve and Olivia as they made their way through a crowded mall, Steve and Olivia both now with a pair of bulky glasses on their faces to help them blend in more. It was amusing to think that was their definition of being incognito, glasses and the hoods up on their hoodies. Granted she had her hood up too, but it was just amusing to see.

"First rule of going on the run is, don't run, walk," she commented to them.

"If I run in these shoes, they're gonna fall off," Steve muttered.

"At least you could still run without them," Olivia grumbled somewhat, "I'm not sure I can run in these pants. Honestly, these are almost as bad as iced tea."

Natasha smirked, "They're called skinny jeans. They're not so bad once you break them in a little. Which you'd know if you wore them more."

"I wear them!"

Natasha snorted, "Still a terrible liar."

Steve finally cracked another smile, reaching out to wind an arm around Olivia's shoulders, "I like your skirts," he reassured her that there was nothing wrong with a distaste for jeans.

"Only because you can see her legs."

"Hey!" Steve huffed, though Olivia smiled a bit when she saw a faint flush creep onto his cheeks, "I just prefer her to be in clothes she feels comfortable in."

"Sure you do," Natasha smirked, leading them into an Apple store, heading right for one of the test Mac books resting open on a table, "The drive has a Level Six homing program so, as soon as we boot up, SHIELD will know exactly where we are."

"How long will it take them to track us?" Olivia asked.

"Uh...about nine minutes from..." she popped the flashdrive into the laptop, "Now."

"Whatever's on here had better be worth all this trouble," Olivia muttered.

Natasha quickly opened the drive, skimming around to see if there was anything useful in it, and boy was there, "Fury was right about that ship, somebody's trying to hide something. This drive is protected by some sort of AI, it keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands."

"Can you override it?" Steve frowned.

"The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me. Slightly."

"Maybe I could help?" Olivia offered, "I did a bit of codebreaking during the war…"

"No offense, but things have gotten a little more complicated since the 1940s. Unless you've got a computer in your head, a tracer might be a better way to go," she started to input a different command, "This is a program that SHIELD developed to track hostile malware, so if we can't read the file, maybe we can find out where it came from."

"Can I help you guys with anything?" a voice spoke beside them as one of the Apple employees stepped over to them. He was a normal looking fellow, wearing the standard uniform, but with longer blond hair and a bit of stubble.

Immediately Steve and Olivia moved to stand on Natasha's side, blocking the man's view of what she was doing on the computer, "No, no," Olivia offered with a tense smile, "We're fine."

Natasha shook her head behind them, mouthing 'SUCH a terrible liar,' before she called out, "I'm just helping my cousin and her fiancé here figure out some honeymoon destinations."

Steve nearly clenched his jaw at that, but couldn't stop himself from shaking his head, of course Natasha would bring up something to do with a wedding or honeymoon. And of course she would do it in spite of the fact they were likely about to be hunted down by SHIELD any moment now. She just wouldn't let it go.

"Right," Steve nodded, reaching out to put an arm around Olivia once more as she wound an arm around his waist, "We're getting married."

The employee beamed at that, "Congratulations! Where do you guys thinking about going?"

Steve had just looked back over his shoulder at the laptop to see it had traced the signal to somewhere in New Jersey, when Olivia blurted out, "Russia!"

He looked over at her, sure that Natasha had done the same at the odd location, but he couldn't help but smile at her answer when she looked at him and gave him a sheepish shrug.

"Oh, nice," the employee kept smiling, before his attention was pulled to Steve, a frown starting to come to his face as he eyed the man more intently, "I have the exact same glasses!" he cheered.

"Wow, you two are practically twins," Natasha remarked dryly behind them.

"Yeah, I wish," the man looked Steve up and down, sounding almost wistful, "Specimen."

"Yes," Olivia nodded, smiling at Steve, "My specimen."

Steve grinned at that, especially when the man seemed to snap himself out of his thoughts, "Uh...if you guys need anything, I'm Aaron."

"Thank you," Steve offered, watching as the man walked away.

"Well, now I've seen everything," Natasha murmured when they turned around to rejoin her, "Major Williams has a possessive streak too, who knew?"

Steve snorted, "Peggy."

Olivia flushed deeply at that, burying her face in her hands as she recalled the stories Peggy had regaled Steve with before they had even admitted their feelings. She had not been…pleased…with how she saw some women fawn all over Steve. She had thought she'd kept enough of a lid on it, been civil enough when asked about it, but Peggy had seen right through it. She'd been jealous, especially when he was surrounded by all those showgirls and she was being carted around her country and unable to be with him. She'd managed to convince herself it was nothing though, because each time she saw Steve he would smile at her and stutter and he didn't do that when he spoke to other women and it had to mean something.

Seeing him with Private Lorraine had been harder to bear. But she had been adamant that it wasn't her right to feel the way she had when Steve and her weren't together. He'd nipped that in the bud, asking to be with her, and it had been wonderful after. She hadn't exactly been possessive just now, it wasn't like she was feeling threatened by Aaron or anyone else, she knew Steve was hers and hers alone, just like she was his, but she'd thought that's what a 'fiancé' would say when someone complimented their partner, at least in this day and age.

She slowly pulled her hands away from her face when they chuckled, her expression morphing into alarm, "You said nine minutes," Olivia remarked.

Steve followed her line of sight to see that Rumlow and his team had arrived at the mall and were walking past the store looking for them, "Come on…" he tried to tug Natasha away.

"Relax," Natasha remained where she was, typing a few more things into the computer and smirking when the signal pinged, "Got it. You know it?" she asked them as the program showed 'Wheaton, NJ' as the location of the AI.

"Oh, dear," Olivia stared at the location.

Steve nodded at the sentiment, "We used to. Let's go," he pulled the flashdrive from the computer, handing it to Olivia as they quickly made their way out of the store, keeping the members of the STRIKE team in sight, "Standard tac-team. Two behind, two across, two coming straight at us."

"We need to be very careful," Olivia warned, "They'll attack despite the civilians. If they've been compromised, they may even use them as leverage."

"If they make us, I'll engage, you two hit the south escalator to the metro," Steve devised as two agents came straight towards them.

"Shut up and put your arm around Liv," Natasha hissed at him, slowing her walk so she could move just behind them, "Laugh at something she said."

"What?"

"Do it!"

Steve quickly put his arm around Olivia, the two of them falling into a natural semi-cuddle as he laughed as though at something she said. He caught sight of the agents out of the corner of his eye as they didn't even glance at them. He let out a breath of relief and nodded his head at the logic. The agents would be looking for two soldiers on the run, not a couple having a good time in a mall.

"Come on, lovebirds, break it up," Natasha teased them, "The escalator's up ahead, we get past that and the entrance is close."

"Almost there," Olivia took a deep breath once they reached the elevator, her and Steve in front of Natasha.

A moment later, Natasha had nudged Steve in the middle of his back, "Kiss her!"

"What?" Steve started to look back at her.

"Don't look at me!" she hissed.

"Rumlow," Olivia caught sight of him, as Natasha had, coming up the escalator next to them as they were going down.

"Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable."

"Yes, they do," Steve agreed.

Natasha rolled her eyes, seeing a limited opportunity when Rumlow turned away to look down one final time, and reached out to turn them to each other, "Kiss!"

The moment their lips were together, they went with it, it wasn't anything they hadn't done a thousand times before.

Natasha smirked as she looked away, seeing Rumlow had done the same at the display, and turned back only after they'd passed him…but the two super soldiers hadn't stopped. Her smirk grew wider as they neared the bottom of the escalator.

"Alright, save it for the wedding," she said behind them, startling them to pull away in time to step off the escalator, "Nice one," she remarked, moving past them to lead them to the door.

"I can HEAR the smirk in her voice," Olivia murmured to Steve as he took her hand.

"Yeah, me too," Steve muttered.

"You still uncomfortable?" Natasha called back to them.

Steve rolled his eyes at that.

"You know, I'm not quite sure I agree with Natasha's logic," Olivia remarked to him.

"Why not?" he asked.

"I always thought public displays of affection were sweet."

Steve considered it a moment, "Depends who I'm being affectionate to."

Olivia smiled.

"Seriously, guys," Natasha called, "Save it for the vows."

This time Olivia rolled her eyes.

~8~

"Ok," Natasha spoke as Steve drove them down a highway towards New Jersey in a car, "Captain America, I can guess. But where does Major Britannia learn how to steal a car?"

"From Captain America," Olivia quipped, before laughing when Steve chuckled.

"Let me guess, you got it from growing up in Brooklyn."

"Nazi Germany," he corrected.

"No, Tasha," Olivia glanced back at the woman sitting in the back seat, her elbows on either of their chairs so she could talk to them both, "It was something the Commandos taught me."

"Oh, yeah," Steve chuckled more, "Those were some interesting lulls."

"Lulls?" Natasha asked.

"Sometimes, when we didn't have a target and we weren't needed elsewhere, the guys would bet each other which of them could steal a tank faster."

"Wild," Natasha smirked.

"Bucky won," Olivia recalled, "Something about stealing a car to drive you to the emergency room."

"Yeah," Steve smiled lightly in remembrance, "And then you told them you'd never driven a car before…"

"What?" Natasha looked at her.

"I was always ill," she shrugged, "Not exactly in the best shape to learn."

"Bucky wouldn't stand for it," Steve laughed, "So he hotwired a car and took Liv for a joyride. Showed her how to hotwire it too incase she needed to know in the future."

"Shame on you, Rogers," Natasha teased, "Your best friend teaches your girl to drive, not you?"

"I taught her," Steve defended.

"Once he found out," Olivia reminded him, "Though I rather enjoyed those lessons more," she reached out to take his hand, making him smile, "I had a wonderful teacher."

"Sorry," Natasha shook her head, "I'm just trying to picture America's golden boy running around Germany and stealing cars."

"It's happening right now, just not in Germany."

"Hey, we're _borrowing_ ," Steve defended.

"Ah yes, borrowing without asking with no intention of returning," Olivia quipped.

"I fully intend to return this," Steve countered, "Or at least make it easy to be returned to its owners."

They rode along in silence for a few more minutes, when Natasha spoke again, "Alright, I have a question for you, oh, which you do not have to answer. I feel like if you don't answer it though, you're kind of answering it, you know?"

"Tasha, just ask," Olivia cut in, turning around to look at her.

"What is it?" Steve asked.

"Was that your first public kiss since 1945?" she smirked.

Olivia laughed as Steve shook his head.

"No," he answered, "It was not our first public kiss since 1945. We're in our nineties, not dead."

"It's just…you're so old-fashioned," Natasha continued, "I'm surprised you even hold hands in public."

"Well, as you keep saying, it's not the 1940s any longer," Olivia defended.

"So does that mean I'll be getting a wedding invite when this is over?"

"Why are you so fixated on us getting married?"

Natasha shrugged, settling back in the seat now, "I don't know, it's just…nice," she offered, not able to think of another word for it, "I mean, everyone's heard the stories of you, especially in SHIELD. Your legends, the things you did during the war. And yeah, I'm not a born American, but what you both sacrificed for your country was commendable. Waking up after being frozen, I can't imagine it. I guess it's just nice that you have each other. It's not exactly easy to find someone with shared life experiences, someone who understands what you've been through."

The two super soldiers fell silent at that. They didn't know much about Natasha, just what was in the basic file they'd gotten during the Avengers Initiative, and small things they either heard from others, from Fury, or from Natasha herself. They knew she had been taken at a young age and trained to be an assassin. She had had everything taken away from her and had been forced to do things she didn't want to do. From what they understood of that program, there weren't many people who Natasha could turn to to who had endured the same as her. It was likely those who went through that program were either dead or still loyal to it.

"You lost a lot," she continued, "You still have each other. From what I've seen, that doesn't always last, so you need to make it last. No regrets, no waiting," she looked between them, "It's been almost 70 years, Rogers, haven't you made the girl wait long enough?"

"I'm honestly more surprised you're focused on this wedding and not the proposal," Steve tried to joke.

But all it did was make Natasha sit bolt upright again, "You haven't proposed yet!? Rogers!"

"What?" he laughed.

"You've been together 70 years! Pull over."

"What?" this time it was Olivia who asked that.

"He needs to pull over and get down on one knee and propose to you, like now."

"I'm not going to propose on the fly," Steve shook his head, continuing his drive, "How is that romantic?"

"I think I'd take romantic over rushed," Olivia agreed.

Natasha rolled her eyes, flopping back down on the seat, "Have it your way then."

"Good," Steve nodded, smiling.

"What about you, Tasha?" Olivia glanced at her, "Anyone you want a proposal from?"

She snorted, "I'd need someone who wants to propose to me first. Or even date me."

"I'm sure you'll find someone someday."

"Maybe," Natasha let out a long breath, "It's hard when you can't tell them the truth, or they know too much of the truth," she considered that a moment, either lie to a civilian and hope they never find out, or date a SHIELD agent scared to death of her, great options.

"If they truly love you, they'd accept you no matter if they knew the entire truth."

"The truth is a matter of circumstances, it's not all things to all people all the time. And neither am I."

"That's a tough way to live," Steve remarked.

"It's a good way not to die, though."

"You know, it's kind of hard to trust someone when you don't know who that someone really is."

"Yeah. Who do you want me to be?"

"A friend," Olivia answered, earning a nod from Steve.

Natasha smiled, "I guess I could do with more of them."

"Well, now you've got two."

"Thanks."

~8~

It had been a smoother ride than any of them were expecting it to be. Despite making it out of the mall undetected, there was always the lingering suspicion that SHIELD would be able to find them, somehow some way. It felt like every mile one of them would be looking over their shoulder, afraid one of SHIELD's vehicles would be racing towards them, ready to run them off the road. Every exit they passed made them tense as though a quinjet was going to rise up before them and fire at them. It made for a smooth, yet rather tense journey.

But eventually they made it to an old, abandoned military base, exactly where the signal Natasha had cracked led them.

It was with a heavy heart and a great solemnity that Steve and Olivia stepped out of the car and looked up at it, Olivia with her holsters on her leg and Steve with his shield on his arm.

"This is it," Steve murmured, reaching out to the side without looking, reaching for Olivia as she took his hand and stepped closer to him, knowing this was affecting him just as much as it was her.

"The file came from these coordinates," Natasha confirmed.

"So did I," Steve remarked, Olivia squeezing his hand more.

"What?" Natasha looked over at him.

"This way," Olivia spoke, the two of them leading her through the base with an ease of someone who knew the facility, which they both did.

This was the base where Steve had come for basic training. This was the place Dr. Erskine had brought her to help him select the next subject for Project Rebirth. This was where they had met, where their love began. It was such an important place…and it had fallen so desolate, so forgotten. It was heartbreaking to see it in such a state of disrepair. This was where it had all begun…would this be where it all ended as well?

Steve and Olivia tried very hard to keep focused on trying to pinpoint where the signal had come from, but it was as though, at every turn, there was something that reminded them of the past. No one else would be able to see it, probably not even those who had trained there and were still alive. They would be too old to recall, but it felt as though it were just yesterday to the two of them.

Olivia reached up to the necklace she wore, needing to pull it out from within her hoodie and fiddle with it. She could still remember standing in the bathroom of the small room she'd been given, trying desperately to get her tie right until Peggy had stepped in to help. She could remember the first time she had seen Steve standing in the lineup, so small and frail yet so determined and with such a good heart. She could remember their talks, tending to his minor wounds, speaking with him the night before his procedure. It all happened right here.

"This camp is where I was trained," Steve murmured, his thoughts on much the same track.

He reached up to his chest with his free hand, resting it just on the necklace he too wore, feeling it beneath the fabric, NEEDING to know it was still there.

Standing there again, it was like he was back in that place, where he'd been tiny and weak and playing at being a soldier. Where the other men were so much better at it, where the colonels put him down constantly and the only people who seemed to see his value were Erskine, Peggy, and Olivia. He needed to remember he wasn't that boy any longer, he was better now, stronger, he wasn't in the past dreaming of this but in the future, with Olivia beside him.

That wasn't to say he didn't have any good memories. This was where he'd met the love of his life, the girl who was their medic who became so much more to him. He could remember sneaking peeks at her when she wasn't looking, trying to get through the exercises better to impress her, even allowing himself to be injured when he saw a prank from the others coming or playing up an injury so he'd have an excuse to be near her.

"Changed much?" Natasha asked, both joking but also somewhat curious. With the hype surrounding Captain America, she'd have thought a place like this would have been restored or better kept…which made her wonder if it had always looked like this.

"A little," Steve looked around, his gaze catching on the flag pole he'd brought down.

He could almost picture himself running with the other privates, with Sergeant Duffy shouting at him to pick up the pace.

"As have we," Olivia murmured, pulling him from his thoughts.

He looked over at her with a soft smile, lifting her left hand to kiss her knuckles before turning to look around, "Any readings?" he asked Natasha.

She shook her head, a small device in her hand that was helping her track, "This is a dead end. Zero heat signature, zero waves, not even radio. Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off…"

Steve looked over when Olivia stopped walking to see her frowning at a building ahead of them, "That's wrong," she pointed at it, "It's designed like an ammunition holding."

"And that's a problem?" Natasha shook her head, following them as they walked over to it.

Steve observed it closer, nodding his head as he realized she was right, and the building truly was wrong, "Army regulations forbid storing ammunition within five hundred yards of the barracks. This building is in the wrong place."

"Which means it was built after this base closed down," Olivia finished, "And there should be no reason for it to be locked if this place is really abandoned," she pointed out, spotting a lock on the door.

"Exactly," Steve agreed, stepping up and raising his shield to break the lock. He pushed the doors open, the three of them stepping inside and turning on the lights to see it was a SHIELD office.

Olivia couldn't help but think things were about to get far more complicated than they originally feared.

A/N: SO sorry this is up so late. I had an orientation for a new job yesterday and I couldn't update my DW story, I got it up today and then had to edit this one but it's still technically Saturday for me, just cutting it close lol ;)

As for this chapter, a lot of fond memories and not so fond memories coming up :/ But Natasha's always there to keep the conversation going to the most important topic, honeymoon, wedding, proposal lol :) I feel like her reasons for being so fixated and pushy about it come across a little more in this chapter, she sort of opens up to Steve and Olivia about it, about her past just a bit, in a show of trust and friendship. She has no one who shared her experiences that she can talk to or lean on, but they do, and she knows how important that is so she sort of wants them to not take time for granted and BE together before it's too late. She's both an optimist and pessimist at the same time lol :)

Just to touch on a bunch of reviews, thank you all so much for your congrats :) I've basically been a nervous wreck about getting a job since April so this is an immense relief lol :) It may mean a bit of a slower update for some stories, but hopefully less stress for me which should work out better in the long run :)

Some notes on reviews...

I'm very glad you're enjoying the stories and the OCs :D So far I have the Percy/OC and Henry/OC on my profile, so I definitely plan to get to them. I can't give a specific timeframe just yet though :( I have so much to catch up on first, but once I get caught up I plan to try and work out what my future updating schedule will be and I should know more then ;)


	6. Uncovered Truths

Uncovered Truths

"This is SHIELD," Natasha murmured as they stepped further into the building, frowning deeply as she looked around, spotting the SHIELD crest on the wall ahead of them.

"Looks like it," Olivia agreed, "But why would they build a branch here? No one's been here in a very long time."

Steve slowed as they entered another room to see some old, framed portraits of Howard Stark, Peggy, and Colonel Phillips, hanging on the wall, "Maybe this is just where it started," he offered.

It would make sense. SHIELD had formed after they had been frozen, but they didn't even known how the SSR had become what it was today. With the hype that was Captain America and Major Britannia and how SHIELD seemed to be based in America, they would pick a site closer to Captain America. This was his training base, where _he_ started, it would be fitting for it to be where SHIELD began as well. Perhaps they had built this building after they'd been frozen as a more stationary home base, non-war related but more central to SHIELD. Once it advanced enough, it would likely move somewhere else, closer to the government and this initial base would be forgotten.

…but then why did it still have the portraits hanging up?

Why were there still things there when it should have been emptied with the inevitable move?

"There's Stark's father," Natasha noted.

"Howard," Olivia nodded, smiling softly at the sight of the three people who had helped them win the war.

"Who's the girl?" Natasha asked, not really caring about the other, grim-looking man. But to see a woman commemorated, that was something she was more interested in learning about. She had seen the records and reports of Captain America and Major Britannia. Steve often got more of the credit in the reports, with what she always called footnotes detailing how many people Olivia saved or assisted. For a woman of the 1940s to be deserving enough to have a portrait next to Howard Stark, it was something.

"Peggy," Olivia answered, "Peggy Carter, my best mate. She's the one who got Dr. Erskine to try me for his first experiment. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for her," she murmured thoughtfully, "I'd have never met Steve if not for her."

"You would have," Steve countered, squeezing her hand, "Somehow we'd have met. Who knows," he shrugged, "Without you vouching for me I might not have been chosen for the next experiment. Maybe it would have been Hodge, maybe he would have tested out his strength on me and I'd have ended up in the hospital in the room next to yours."

Olivia shook her head, touched he truly believed they would have found their way to each other no matter what. She wasn't about to remind him she had been in hospital in England, not America and there was no cause for him to end up in a hospital in another country when America had fine ones. That or the strength Hodge would have used might have killed him instantly. She especially didn't want to recall how near the end she had been at the time, she may not have survived to meet him.

She didn't want to think about either, she didn't want to think about a world where she and Steve never met. It didn't matter in the long run, she HAD met him and that was all that mattered.

She shook her head again, starting to walk down the hall with Steve once more, looking around for any sign of someone there or something that could cause the signal Natasha had traced. They eventually came across a massive bookshelf empty of any books. Steve stepped closer to it, looking it over, from one end to the other, when he noticed there was no wall behind the shelf. He could feel the gentlest puff of air from one side of it.

"If you're already working in a secret office..." Steve murmured, reaching out to grab the end of the shelf, pulling it so it slid to the side, though it creaked with disuse, revealing a hallway behind it, "Why do you need to hide the elevator?"

They looked at each other, nodding, and stepping past the shelf into the hall. They reached the door to the elevator, a key pad beside it. Natasha pulled out the tech she'd taken with her, flashing it over the pad to scan it and determine the keycode. Once she had it, she keyed it in, opening the door to the elevator, which they took down, the doors opening into a darkened room. They could faintly see a few small, dim lights before them and started walking towards it in the darkness. They were halfway there when the lights flickered on by itself, revealing what looked like the oldest computer still in existence, with a large control panel that held a few small monitors on it. There was one monitor, larger than the others, set in the middle of the panel with an old security camera fixed on top of it. Everything appeared to be covered in a layer of dust.

"This can't be the data-point," Natasha frowned as she stepped nearer to the console, "This technology is ancient."

"That's not," Olivia pointed out, nodding at a black flashdrive port hooked up in the middle of the panel. It was out of place not only in color, with everything else being dusty white or yellowed with age, but in the state of its tech and the fact that there was no dust on it.

Olivia looked over at Steve and Natasha, who nodded, and so she stepped closer and placed the flashdrive into the top port. It seemed to trigger an activation of sorts, the rest of the computer powered up, all the devices around the room starting to spin and whir.

The security camera on top of the middle monitor began to twitch as well, the computer speaking out, "Initiate system?" while also writing it in green letters across the monitor.

"Y-E-S," Natasha typed in, "Spells yes," she smiled as the computer began to warm up, "'Shall we play a game?'" she mimicked, straightening and turning to the others to explain, "It's from a movie that..."

"Yeah," Steve cut in, "We saw it."

"Terrible movie," Olivia murmured. She meant it in the sense that it was terrible to think that others would give power of war to a computer expressly because it lacked human emotion and wouldn't hesitate to declare war the way a human would. After having lived through it, war was something that should be avoided at all costs.

"Rogers, Steven," voice began to speak, heavily accented, the monitor flickering with green lights, creating something of a distorted face, "Born, 1918. Williams, Olivia. Born 1921. Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna. Born, 1984."

Natasha looked up at the security camera as it moved, analyzing them, and shook her head, "It's some kind of a recording," it had to be, to interact with them was too advanced for machines this old.

"I am not a recording, Fräulein," the computer spoke, "I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I am..."

Steve and Olivia watched in horror as a computer screen to the side of the main one began to show an old photo of Zola.

"No…" Olivia breathed.

Natasha frowned and looked at them, "Do you know this thing?"

"Arnim Zola," Steve answered, serious, "He was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull."

"He's been dead for years," Olivia added.

"First correction, I am Swiss," the computer, Zola, spoke, "Second, look around you. I have never been more alive. In 1972 I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body, my mind, however, that was worth saving on two hundred thousand feet of data banks. You are standing in my brain."

"How did you get here?" Steve asked the computer.

"Invited."

"What?" Olivia frowned at that, unable to imagine that a man like Zola, after all he'd done for HYDRA, would ever be invited there.

Natasha, though, seemed to realize what Zola was talking about, "It was Operation Paperclip," she explained to them, "After World War II, SHIELD recruited German scientists with strategic value."

"They thought I could help their cause," Zola chuckled, "I also helped my own."

Steve shook his head, "HYDRA died with the Red Skull," he insisted. HYDRA _had_ to have died with Red Skull, otherwise everything he and Olivia had done, everything they'd fought for and nearly died for, would be for nothing.

"Cut off one head, two more shall take its place."

"Prove it," Steve demanded.

"Accessing archive," the computer spoke, and another monitor on the other side of it began to show archived footage of Red Skull, "HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize, was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist," and then clips of Steve and Olivia during the war, "The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, SHIELD was founded and I was recruited," they watched as the footage turned to Zola working with other scientists and SHIELD officials, "The new HYDRA grew. A beautiful parasite inside SHIELD. For seventy years HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed."

Images of the Winter Soldier flickered, the man with the metal arm and red star, as a sniper, as a warrior.

"That's impossible," Natasha declared, "SHIELD would have stopped you."

"Accidents will happen," they could hear the smirk in the computerized voice as the footage changed to show a news report of Howard Stark's death in a car accident, implying it wasn't an accident at all but the work of HYDRA, followed by a brief report of Fury's own death, "HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process is complete, HYDRA's new world order will arise. We won. The death of Captain America and Major Britannia amount to the same as your lives," more clips appeared of news articles of how Steve and Olivia had gone missing, how they had sacrificed their lives, "A zero sum."

"Steve!" Olivia gasped when he suddenly lashed out in anger and punched the computer screen, shorting it out and cracking it. She reached out, taking his fist and looking over his knuckles to make sure he was alright. She had just reached up to touch his cheek with a hand, wanting to pull his attention away from the screen, when he pulled her to him instead and hugged her tightly.

"Not your life," he murmured in her ear as he held her close.

She closed her eyes a moment, understanding why he'd reacted so harshly. He would always defend her, protect her, as she would him, they loved each other. She couldn't deny she had been getting angry herself at what Zola was saying. In no universe was Steve's life worth a zero sum, she just hadn't reacted as violently as Steve had.

"Nor yours," she replied back.

"Ah, so sweet," Zola's voice rang out, tauntingly, forcing them to pull apart when a side monitor flickered and his face was back, "As I was saying..."

Steve shook his head and strode forward, "What's on this drive?"

"Project Insight requires insight. So I wrote an algorithm."

"What kind of algorithm?" Olivia asked, "What does it do?"

"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it."

They spun around when the doors to the room began to shut. Steve immediately hurled his shield at it, trying to wedge it between the doors, but he was too late. The shield bounced off of it and back to him as he caught it.

Natasha pulled out a beeping device from her pocket, "We got a bogey," she called out to them, "Short range ballistic. 30 seconds tops."

"Who fired it?" he asked.

"SHIELD."

They looked around for a place to give them more cover.

"I am afraid I have been stalling," Zola continued as Steve spotted a grate in the floor and ran over to it, Olivia urging Natasha to follow, "Admit it, it's better this way. We're all of us...out of time."

Steve yanked the grate off, moving Olivia and Natasha to jump down before he joined them.

"Steve!" Olivia shouted, having gotten one of her batons positioned and tossing him the other to put on the other side of him.

He activated the shield feature, creating a field around the three of them just as the missile hit and blew up the base around them.

~8~

Olivia offered Sam Wilson a sheepish and apologetic look when he opened the door of his home after Steve had knocked, knowing they all must look a sight. While her batons had kept them safe from the explosion, it hadn't protected the building around them which had crumbled on top of them. Between her and Steve, they had managed to maneuver the rubble enough for them all to escape and had only barely managed to evade the STRIKE team that had been rooting around the rubble on the surface.

"…hey?" Sam blinked at them.

"I'm sorry about this," Steve spoke, "We need a place to lay low."

"Everyone we know is trying to kill us," Natasha added.

Sam looked between them, before stating, "Not everyone," and stepping aside to let them into his home. He glanced up and down to make sure they hadn't been followed, that they'd be safe, before he shut the door.

~8~

Olivia sighed as she finished tending to the few wounds that Steve had sustained in their escape. As always, he'd insisted that she and Natasha be taken care of first before he allowed her to treat his minor scrapes and cuts. It hadn't taken much doing, her batons had kept them quite safe, it was just the getting out of the base that roughed them up. Steve had taken the forefront of getting them out while she had kept Natasha between them for more protection. So it had been quite easy to get Natasha patched up. She had, however, refused to tend to herself until Steve had been see to and the longer he fought her on that the longer she'd go untreated, as she'd argued when he inevitably refused to be treated.

"As much as I do enjoy this view," she told him gently, "I rather hate when it's in this context."

That managed to draw a small smirk from him, "And you say I'm terrible."

Olivia shook her head at that, knowing why he'd said it. He was currently standing in front of her without his shirt on, having gotten a small scratch on the right side of his chest when he'd flung the grate of the base away. She reached up to lightly trace the injury, knowing that it was likely already healing under the bandage she'd applied. Luckily she had had her medical bag with her and hadn't needed to dig into Sam's own supplies though he had offered it to them along with the use of his shower.

Absently her touch shifted to the necklace he was wearing, the one she had given him almost 70 years ago. She had told him it would be easier to treat his injury if he took the necklace off, but he refused. He hadn't taken it off since she'd given it to him, he wasn't going to start now. So he'd held it away from the wound till she was finished. She let her fingers trace over the objects dangling from the end of it. Even after all these years he still wore Bucky's dogtags too. She had been lucky to find them for him, it was a small comfort, to have that when he'd lost his friend, but it was a comfort nonetheless.

Steve reached up and guided her hand from the dangling charms to his heart, letting her feel that it was still beating, knowing she needed that comfort when her own hand went to the necklace he had given her, fiddling with the trinkets on the end.

"We're alright," he reassured her.

"I know," she tried to smile, "I just worry about how long it'll last."

"As long as I've got you beside me, I'll always be alright."

She smiled genuinely this time, "I feel the same."

He returned her smile, reaching out to take her left hand and kiss her knuckles, before they turned to head into the bedroom Sam had let them use to freshen up in. He'd forgotten his shirt out on one of the dressers and grabbed it to put on. He was honestly surprised that Natasha hadn't made some sort of comment about how it was not-so-old-fashioned of him to be walking around without a shirt on. When he looked over, she was sitting on the bed, sad and thoughtful, glancing in their direction but didn't seem to really be paying attention.

"Tasha?" Olivia called, moving to sit beside her on the bed, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," she huffed.

Olivia cracked a small smile, "Now who's the bad liar?"

"What's going on?" Steve asked, managing to get the shirt on and lean in the doorway of the bathroom.

Natasha sighed, "When I first joined SHIELD, I thought I was going straight. But I guess I just traded in the KGB for HYDRA. I thought I knew whose lies I was telling, but...I guess I can't tell the difference anymore."

"There's a chance you might be in the wrong business," Steve joked, getting her to smile faintly.

"If it helps, I don't think anyone could tell when Fury lied to them," Olivia offered, reaching out to put a hand on Natasha's shoulder, "If someone was skilled enough to lie to him and him not notice?" she shook her head, "I don't think there's hope for anyone else to tell the difference either."

Natasha looked between the two of them, both of them trying to make her feel better despite the lies she had told them herself, "I owe you."

"It's ok," Steve waved it off at the same time that Olivia added, "You don't."

She snorted slightly, "If it was the other way around, and it was down to me to save your lives, and you be honest with me, would you trust me to do it?"

Steve looked at her for a long moment, weighing her question and how it wasn't just HIS life he would be trusting her to save. He looked at Olivia, sitting beside Natasha, and thought back to the friendship the woman had built with the two of them over the course of the year. He nodded, "I would now."

"And, as we've repeatedly established," Olivia joked, nudging Natasha, "I'm terrible at not being honest."

That earned more of a smile from Natasha as she looked between the two of them, "You know, you guys seem pretty chipper for people who just found out they died for nothing."

"I refuse to think it was for nothing," Olivia stated, "The world is still spinning, and maybe this is just god's way of putting us where we're most needed. We might have died of old age by now and we wouldn't have been able to help stop HYDRA again."

Steve nodded, "I just like to know who I'm fighting."

There was a soft knock on the door and they looked over to see Sam there, "I made breakfast. If you guys...eat that sort of thing."

Olivia stood, "I don't know about them, but I'm _starved_ ," she made her way over to Sam, leaving the room with him, "Do you happen to have any HOT tea?"

Steve chuckled and looked at Natasha, "Up for some grub?"

She nodded and stood, leaving the room with Steve.

~8~

"Never thought I'd see the day," Sam remarked to Natasha as they sat at his kitchen table, "Captain America and Major Britannia doing my dishes."

Natasha smirked at that, shaking her head as they watched the two super soldiers doing exactly that, wash and dry Sam's dishes.

"You know I have a dishwasher, right?" he called to them.

"No harm in a little old-fashioned work," Steve taunted back, though the joke was more for Natasha.

"Speaking of old-fashioned," Sam sobered up, thinking about everything they'd told him of what they'd experienced the last few days. Mutinies and manhunts, evil AIs and missile launches, they lived some life, "You really got nearly blown up by a missile in an old army base?"

Olivia looked down at that, now that they'd had a moment of calm…it was upsetting not just that SHIELD had tried to kill them, they could only assume it was a compromised portion of the facility. But because the base had been so important to the founding of SHIELD, to the creation of Captain America, and now it had been tarnished by becoming HYDRA's foothold.

"Yeah," Steve answered, solemn and serious once more.

"So, the question is," Natasha sighed, "Who in SHIELD could launch a domestic missile strike?"

"And what did they tell other agents," Olivia handed the last dish to Steve and drained the sink, turning to face Sam and Natasha, "I can't imagine a missile strike goes unnoticed by the others. And I refuse to believe _every_ agent of SHIELD has been compromised."

Steve set the last plate to the side and turned, pressing a kiss to Olivia's hair as he turned. He knew she was thinking about Sharon Carter. If there was one person in SHIELD he didn't want to think of being compromised, it would be her too. DID any other agents know? What had they been told and how believable was the excuse?

"It would have to be someone with authorization and enough clout that they could cover it up," Steve sighed, "Only one I can think of is Pierce."

"Who happens to be sitting on top of the most secure building in the world," Natasha reminded him.

"He can't be working alone," Olivia realized, "The algorithm Zola created was on the Lemurian Star."

"So was Jasper Sitwell," Natasha realized.

"So, the real question is…how do the three most wanted people in Washington kidnap a SHIELD officer in broad daylight?" Steve asked.

"I don't think a public display of affection will work quite so well this time," Olivia mused, before holding up a finger at Natasha when she opened her mouth, "And no, a very public wedding between Steve and I is _not_ on the table for that."

Natasha mock-pouted when her suggestion was shot down before she could make it, even as a joke.

"The answer is," Sam looked between them, "You don't," he turned and picked up a file, holding it out to Steve.

Steve reached out and took the file, coming to join them at the table with Olivia and opening the file. It was a number of records, Sam's personal records it appeared, detailing his skill set, training, his tours and other information regarding his service in the army.

"What's this?" Steve asked as they flipped through it, looking at the handful of notes and pictures attached to the file.

"Call it a resume," Sam shrugged as he got up, allowing the three of them some time to sift through the details of the packet.

Natasha looked over at some of the photos that fell out, seeing one of Sam with what could only be his para-rescue team. She blinked, recognizing the landscape and the date from the stamp in the corner, "Is this Bakhmala?" she looked up at him, sounding almost impressed, "The Khalid Khandil mission, that was you?" she gave Olivia and Steve a look for that, "You didn't say he was a para-rescue."

Olivia paused when she came to a photo of Sam with his arm around another man's shoulders, both of them standing in a way she had often seen when it came to Steve and Bucky. It was something she recognized with her and Peggy as well, the stance of two men who were not just partners but truly close friends.

"Is this Riley?" she looked over at Sam, asking him gently, not wanting to upset him if it brought up the painful memories he'd mentioned during their talks.

Sam swallowed hard, but nodded, "Yeah."

She nodded as well, not asking any more about it as she slid the picture to Steve to see as well.

Natasha, however, was caught up on the fact that Sam was para-rescue and involved in the Khandil mission, "I heard they couldn't bring in the choppers because of the RPGs," she spoke, eyeing Sam a bit more critically now, "What did you use, a stealth chute?"

"No," Sam shook his head, moving back to the table and pulling out the last file to hand to them, "These."

Olivia's eyes widened as she saw schematics for what looked like wings. There were diagrams of weapons caches, rockets, tech. But, even more, there weren't just sketches of an idea, but an actual prototype. There was a picture of Sam standing there, wearing a suit with metal wings on the back of it. It made more sense now, the added guilt that Sam felt about the death of his friend. If he had been parachuting down, there was so little control and ways to maneuver it to do anything else but land when it was released. There would be a way to talk yourself into believing there was nothing you could do, because of the parachute.

But something like this? With as much control as it appeared to give, the ability to maneuver and fight back? If an attack against Riley happened so quickly Sam couldn't help, it would hit him more. Because he would feel he SHOULD have been able to fight back and help his friend, but he couldn't.

"I thought you said you were a pilot," Steve glanced up at Sam.

Sam smirked, "I never said pilot."

"He's right," Olivia murmured, before looking over at Sam, "Sam…you need to understand what you're offering to do and what will happen if you do this. You're going to be putting your life in danger."

"Nothing different than over there," he shrugged.

"You'll be wanted," she emphasized, "If we fail, we're going to be seen as traitors and hunted down by _every_ resource SHIELD…and HYDRA…can spare. You could get hurt, you could die. Everything you have going for you, you'll be giving up. The VA, your safety, your freedom. It'll be like going back there all over again."

"We can't ask you to do this, Sam," Steve agreed, "You got out for a good reason."

It was clear to Sam, in how Steve looked over at Olivia only a moment after he said that, that the man was regretting he hadn't gotten out too. The last conversation they had was coming back to him. These two soldiers had been in it for decades now, they had done everything for this country and now the country, one of the largest defense organizations meant to keep it safe, something founded on what they'd done for their countries, was trying to take them both out.

Steve regretted he hadn't gotten out before it reached this point, where both he and Olivia were in danger at every turn, targeted for some reason they couldn't fully understand.

These two had done their part for the country, and while he couldn't pay them back for everything they'd lost, he could at least do this, give them support when they needed it.

That was what his work at the VA was all about, helping other soldiers when they needed it.

"Dude," he shook his head, smiling at them, "Major Britannia and Captain America need my help? There's no better reason to get back in."

A small part of him he wasn't ready to listen to yet, thought, maybe, just maybe, this was why he had survived the war, maybe it was like Olivia said when he'd heard them talking before he got to the room, that it was god's way of getting him where he needed to be as well. If he'd died over there, he wouldn't be here now to help these two heroes.

"Thank you, Sam," Olivia smiled.

"Where can we get our hands on one of these things?" Steve asked, giving Sam a firm nod of respect and gratitude.

Sam let out a breath, "The last one is at Fort Meade, behind three guarded gates and a twelve-inch steel wall."

Steve and Olivia looked at each other, before glancing over at Natasha, who shrugged with a small smirk on her face.

Steve smirked as well as he turned back to Sam, "Shouldn't be a problem."

Olivia let out a faint chuckle, "From medic to marauder," she shook her head, "This will be quite the story to tell Peggy."

"Didn't she want to be a pirate once?" Steve asked, recalling a story Olivia had told him of buried treasure and pirate ships.

Olivia smiled, "She did," she mused, "She got to be one when we were children," she took a breath, "It's about time I got to be one," she nodded, "Let's break into Fort Meade."

"Well, we've got the boss's ok," Natasha teased Steve.

He just rolled his eyes at her, "Let's do this."

A/N: And the team starts coming together :)

Did anyone else feel bad for Steve when Zola was taunting him with the brief footage of the Winter Soldier? He finds out his man is a HYDRA agent, has actually assassinated the people Natasha told him about, AND murdered Howard Stark...and we all know who the Winter Soldier is. Just imagining what Steve must have been thinking at the time, about the horrible things the soldier did and how he'd have to stop him to take the advantage away from HYDRA...and then later realize the soldier he'd been ready to take out was Bucky? :'(

Some notes on reviews...

That was definitely something I could see Steve doing when he gets injured. Like, for most of his life he'd probably try to downplay his injuries and illnesses, but having someone like Liv understand him...I could see him taking advantage of the injuries to be able to spend time with her :) I can say Steve hasn't quite told her about his efforts during training, but she will find out about it before this series is over ;)

Lol, we'll have to see if Liv ever gets used to jeans :)

Oh yes, Sam and Natasha. I picture them being those people off to the side whenever Steve and Liv have a sweet moment just fake crying and going 'our babies are growing up so fast' lol :)


	7. Targets

A/N: I'm back! Woo! Going to keep this short, there's an A/N at the end of the chapter that talks more about what happened, posting order, and update schedule. Just wanted to start with how happy I am to be back and posting ;) Now, onto the chapter!

~8~

Targets

"I'm not sure whether I should be disappointed in SHIELD if this works or not," Olivia murmured into the comm. on her ear. Natasha truly was very prepared when it came to the small trinkets she kept on her person. She was standing on the roof of an office building across the street from where Agent Sitwell was to be meeting with Senator Stern, clutching a small cylinder-like object in her hand. If this worked, then the agents of SHIELD were not very bright to be so easily duped.

"I'd go for being glad if it works at all," Sam Wilson's voice remarked in her ear.

"It'll work," Steve assured them, a faint sound of a car running accompanying his words, which made sense to Olivia. While she was on the roof of the building, Natasha and Steve were down below in a grey car just around the corner from Sitwell's building.

"Any sign of Sitwell?" Natasha asked and Olivia knew it was spoken towards her and Sam, they were the only ones that would have a visual on the 'target' given where she was, Sam sitting at a line of small tables just across the street from the building.

Olivia nodded, though she knew they couldn't see her, "He's just stepped out of the building, he's talking to the Senator."

"You're up Sam," Steve called.

They could hear the sound of a phone ringing in their ears as Sam dialed Sitwell's number, a bit of clever hacking on Natasha's part making the number appear on Sitwell's phone as though it came from Pierce, ensuring the man would answer and answer privately.

Olivia bit the inside of her cheek as she watched Sitwell gesture the men around him away. She wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not either. Was he stepping to the side so the men wouldn't hear his conversation, which would, in Sitwell's mind, undoubtedly be about her and Steve's escape? Did that mean the men were NOT compromised agents and he didn't want to risk them overhearing and taking him out? Or was it like Fury had said, compartmentalizing so that they didn't know the next phase but were equally on Sitwell's side?

She really rather hated how SHIELD had come to this.

She hated how it had taken her and Steve to realize something was wrong before actual SHIELD agents had noticed. Perhaps it was just a matter of perspective. She and Steve had fresh eyes, they had come from dealing with HYDRA and were more familiar with their tactics and organizations. They could see the stark difference between the SSR and SHIELD, how like-HYDRA it had become where others who had been part of the program for years on end might not have seen the subtle shifts that made it what it was today. 70 years was a long enough time to guide an organization without anyone noticing.

"Yes, sir?" Sitwell's voice echoed in her ear, pulling her attention back to the present.

"Agent Sitwell," Sam answered instead, "How was lunch? I hear the crab cakes here are delicious."

Olivia could see the man physically stiffen from her position, "Who is this?"

"The good-looking guy in the sunglasses, your ten o'clock."

Olivia couldn't help but let out a soft snort when Sitwell looked in the opposite direction, "How did HYDRA infiltrate SHIELD if they think 2 o' clock is 10 o' clock?" she wondered, her lips quirking into a small smile at the sound of Steve sniggering, understanding what the man had done.

"Your _other_ ten o'clock," Sam deadpanned, and Sitwell finally turned in the right direction towards the line of umbrella covered tables where she knew Sam was sitting, "There you go."

"What do you want?" Sitwell demanded.

"You're gonna go around the corner, to your right," he added in, just imagining if he'd given a less explicit instruction that had the man going left, "There's a grey car, two spaces down. You and I are gonna take a ride."

Sitwell snorted, "And why would I do that?"

"Liv," Steve's voice murmured in her ear.

She nodded to herself again, and pointed the cylindrical item in her hand at Sitwell, activating the laser pointer to land on Sitwell's tie.

"Because that tie looks really expensive, and I'd hate to mess it up," Sam finished.

Olivia could see Sitwell glance down, noticing the laser dot circling his heart. The man wouldn't know there _wasn't_ actually a gun trained on him, and that was all they needed to ensure he did as instructed. She kept the laser focused on him until the man turned to walk down the street to his right, gesturing the bodyguards away as he went, keeping the phone to his ear.

She could see Sam get up a moment later and amble after him, reaching Sitwell just as they moved around the corner and out of her sight, appearing to the bodyguards as though just another person walking around.

A moment later, Steve's voice was back, "We got him," he informed her, "Coming your way."

Olivia let out a breath, hearing a bit of a ruckus over the comms., Sitwell complaining and threatening before it sounded like he was gagged. She could see the grey car pull away and begin a path she knew Natasha would use to circle a few other blocks before pulling into the basement parking level of the building she was waiting on. If all went to plan, they'd be taking the elevator straight up to the roof while Sam 'guarded the car' as they'd 'order' him to do when removing Sitwell.

She moved over to a crate next the door to the building's roof access and sat down to wait, silently counting the time. Knowing Natasha's driving, Steve's strength, and their combined intimidation, she didn't see it taking more than 10 minutes to get there. Though it didn't help her nerves much to sit there and wait, her leg bobbing as she tried to control her anxiety. It wasn't that she doubted Steve or Natasha's ability, or even Sam's, it was just…Fury always seemed so untouchable, but he had shown up at their apartment with a number of other injuries she had only just started to work on before he was shot. From what Sharon Carter had managed to let slip during her 'questioning', Fury had been targeted in his heavily armored car, involved in a firefight and then a car chase, before, from what Natasha felt, the Winter Soldier had gotten to him.

If Fury could be attacked so thoroughly, she worried for the others in their unarmored car and civilian clothing. She just had to hope that they had remained anonymous enough to have not been seen in Sam's car.

So lost in her thoughts was she that she nearly jumped out of her skin when the door to the roof slammed open and Sitwell was shoved through it, Steve and Natasha following him out. She caught Steve's eye for a moment as he gave her a nod, seeming to have known where her thoughts had gone and letting her know he was alright.

Seeing she was alright as well set him back on task, turning to Sitwell and shoving him across the roof even more, demanding, "Tell us about Zola's algorithm!"

"Never heard of it," Sitwell sneered.

"What were you doing on the Lemurian Star?" Olivia asked, joining Natasha and Steve as they continued to force Sitwell further across the roof.

"I was throwing up, I get seasick."

"No, you weren't," Olivia shook her head, "Medic," she reminded him, pointing at herself, "I read your file and examined everyone on that ship."

Sitwell seemed about to make some sort of comment, but Steve was not in the mood, and so he reached out and shoved the man even more to cut him off, nearly sending him stumbling into the edge of the roof.

"Careful," Olivia called as the man caught himself, "You fall from this height, not even I can piece you back together."

He scoffed, "Fall?" he shook his head, "Don't you mean _push_?" he turned to glare at Steve a moment before his expression turned into a mocking smile, "Is this little display meant to insinuate that you're gonna throw me off the roof? Because I doubt your commanding officer would let you," he flicked his gaze at the medic and back, "Besides, it's really not your style, Rogers."

"You're right," Steve admitted, "It's not," before he quickly stepped aside, "It's hers."

Natasha didn't hesitate to kick Sitwell right off the roof, watching as he plummeted down with a scream. She glanced at Olivia who was frowning, not having been a fan of this part of the plan, "What?" she shrugged, "You're not MY commanding officer."

Olivia shook her head, glancing at the ledge, the only thing that had kept her from lunging forward to grab Sitwell was the knowledge that Sam would be waiting to catch the man as he fell.

"Speaking of being a commanding officer though," Natasha continued, "You gonna take his name? Be Major Rogers? Cos, you know, it IS the 21st century, women don't HAVE to take their husband's names."

Olivia's frown turned into an amused shake of the head, "That'd be a bit confusing, having two Rogers running around a battlefield."

"So what I'm hearing is, professionally, you're going to…"

"Can we not?" Steve cut in with a sigh, knowing that, if he didn't stop her, Natasha would get on a tangent about their names and hyphenating them or him taking Olivia's name or something and they had more important things to focus on right now.

"Killjoy," Natasha groused under her breath, but let it drop.

Not even a moment later Sam soared over head in his customized Falcon jet-pack suit, wings causing quite a shadow above them, Sitwell dangling upside down by his ankle in Sam's grip before the man unceremoniously dumped him on the roof.

After that fall and flight, seeing even Olivia approaching with Steve and Natasha was enough to have him panting and gasping and holding up his hands in surrender, "Zola's algorithm is a program...for choosing Insight's targets!"

"What targets?" Olivia frowned, dreading the answer. Knowing how HYDRA had worked, seeing the footage Zola had shown them, it would not be anything good.

"You!" Sitwell gestured between her and Steve, "A TV anchor in Cairo, the Undersecretary of Defense, a high school valedictorian in Iowa city. Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, anyone who's a threat to HYDRA! Now, or in the future."

"The future?" Steve shook his head, "How could it know?"

Sitwell just let out a barking laugh, "How could it NOT? The 21st century is a digital book. Zola taught HYDRA how to read it," he looked at Steve and Natasha, who appeared very confused, but Olivia was frowning in a more thoughtful manner and he homed in on that, "YOU get it don't you? It's like medical records, but on a broader scale."

Olivia nodded, getting it now, which surprised her given she knew about as much of this era as Steve did. But when he mentioned the medical records, it became clearer. Before the serum, before the experiments, she and Steve, their medical records told a story. On paper, it told enough about them and how they were a fit for the project, it told of what their lives might be like having to live with so many ailments.

This really WAS a broader scale though, as Sitwell said, because it wasn't JUST medical records, it was...everything else. From what she'd seen, from brief glimpses of people on their phones, of Sharon even and the apps she used and tried to explain to her. Everything a person searched, read, bought, online all told about their interests. One person reading the right article about something even vaguely HYDRA-like, or putting out a twitter (whatever that was) about their thoughts on the right subject, could tell their thoughts on it, could be a danger to HYDRA if more people saw it and began to feel the same. The digital era connected far more people than ever before, but it also made people more visible than ever as well. It made them targets. She had seen, one person taking a comment the wrong way could incite an army of like-minded individuals to target and attack the commenter, this was just…a far more deadly scale.

Sitwell nodded, explaining it more to Steve and Natasha, "Your bank records, medical histories, voting patterns, e-mails, phone calls, your damn SAT scores. Zola's algorithm evaluates people's past to predict their future."

"And what then?" Steve demanded, sickened by what the man was saying. Innocent until proven guilty, the words rang in his ears from earlier with Fury, this algorithm was trying to prove guilt before a person even consciously thought of doing anything remotely guilty. And, worse yet, it was defining guilt in terms of those who could stop HYDRA.

"Oh, my God," Sitwell breathed, "Pierce is gonna kill me."

"What then?!"

"Steve," Olivia cut in, putting a hand on his arm, tears in her eyes as she pieced it together like one of her much beloved puzzles, "Project Insight," she repeated, catching Sitwell mentioning it before, "It's going to target those people, just like Fury said."

Sitwell scoffed at that, such a grim sound that even HE seemed cowed by the magnitude of it all, "Insight Helicarriers scratch people off the list a few _million_ at a time," he corrected.

~8~

It was a bit more cramped trying to drive the car with five people smushed into it, but they managed. With Sam driving and Natasha in the front, Sitwell trapped between Steve and Olivia in the back, they headed down the highway intent to get to Triskelion.

"HYDRA doesn't like leaks," Sitwell muttered, seeming far too tense, setting Olivia ill at ease. It was almost like he expected something, but it couldn't be. They had taken care to ensure no one noticed or saw them speak with Sitwell. They had even picked the building to confront him on based on there being no windows on the side he'd been kicked off of.

"So why don't you try sticking a cork in it," Sam grumbled.

"Insight's launching in sixteen hours, we're cutting it a little bit close here," Natasha remarked.

"We've cut it closer in the past," Olivia countered, trying to make it sound less terrible than it really was. Though, they weren't flying a craft into ice because it was THAT near the deadline, so she counted that as a positive.

"We just need to get to base," Steve murmured, "We'll use him to bypass the DNA scans and access the Helicarriers directly."

"What?!" Sitwell gaped at him, "Are you crazy? That is a terrible, _terrible_ idea."

They all tensed when a thump sounded above them on the roof of the car.

"Liv!" Steve yelled when a metal arm smashed through the window on her side.

But the man the arm was attached to didn't seem intent to grab for Olivia, his task seeming to be taking out the 'leak' first as it bypassed her entirely, reaching right across in front of her to grab Sitwell and yanked him out of the car before she or Steve could even reach to try and grab him back. Though the Winter Soldier didn't dine to hold onto him for long, choosing instead to toss the man into the middle of incoming traffic, killing him near instantly.

Steve reached out with lightning reflexes to grab Olivia, pulling her towards him, not willing to risk her being the next target, the two ducking under his shield as the Winter Soldier stood on the car roof and began to shoot down at them, trying to hit any one of them he could now that his prime objective had been dealt with.

"Hold this!" Steve called to Olivia, passing her his shield before he dove through the middle of the two seats in front of him to reach out and yank the emergency brake on. The car skid to a halt, throwing the Winter Soldier off the roof and tumbling down the front of the car onto the highway before them.

"Behind!" Olivia warned, seeing Steve, Natasha, and Sam's attention on the man picking himself up and not noticing a black car gunning for their unmoving ride.

It was enough of a warning for the others to brace themselves as the car smashed into them from behind and pushed them towards the Winter Soldier. The man proved his agility and endurance by leaping back to his feet and on top of the car once more. Sam, who had been struggling with trying to steer the car as it was being pushed from behind, gasped as a metal arm reached through the windshield, shattering it, to rip the steering wheel right out of the car.

"Shit!" Sam cried, both from the shock of the situation and from trying to duck down as Natasha began to try her hand at shooting up at the Winter Soldier through the roof as he had done to them moments earlier.

Natasha's efforts were effective in the sense that it did get the Winter Soldier off their car, the man jumping back onto the one behind them, but did little to actually stop the assassin in question.

Olivia grunted as the car slammed into the dividing wall of the highway, with them unable to steer the wild car and the one behind them forcing them on, "We need to get out!" she shouted over the noise of metal grinding.

Right now they were stuck between a rock and a hard place. If they stayed in the car, they would continually be chased and pushed on, eventually they'd crash into civilians. They also couldn't defend themselves crammed in as they were. But to get out would mean exposing themselves to attack…yet it would also mean the freedom to move to defend themselves and give the civilians a chance to get away. THEY were the target, not other people, if they stopped and stood their ground, the people after them wouldn't go after others or put them in danger. It was going to be a choice between their lives or civilians, and she knew, without a doubt, what they would all pick.

Steve seemed to realize that as well, for he reached out, maneuvering his shield back onto his arm and wrapping that arm around Olivia, "Grab them," he told her in her ear, also grabbing the door behind her with the same arm. He reached out with his free arm to grab Sam while Olivia maneuvered to grab Natasha over the seats.

"Hang on!" he shouted, shoving against his side of the car and breaking the door on Olivia's side off, the four of them falling through the vehicle and onto the road just as it crashed into the divider once more and began to flip and roll over, the four of them sliding along on the door and shield. Steve grit his teeth from the jolt of it, cursing under his breath when he lost his grip on Sam, the man sent rolling to the side.

Luckily for Sam, it seemed like the Winter Soldier and the agents who joined him, clearly HYDRA's gunmen, were more intent on the wanted trio than what they thought was a civilian aiding them and he was quickly able to run to the side for cover.

The trio scrambled to their feet as soon as they could, looking up only to see the Winter Soldier had been given a much larger gun, the man sending what seemed like a miniature missile at them. Steve quickly pushed Olivia and Natasha to the side, raising his shield to take the brunt of the missile attack. The shield held up, but the force of the impact sent Steve flying over the side of the overpass, down to the street below, and crashing through the side of a bus, sending it careening into another truck as it swerved, toppling it.

Olivia ran to the edge of the overpass, looking down, able to hear the screams of children and the cries of the injured, "We've got wounded!" she warned Sam and Natasha as they reached her.

"Go!" Sam urged her, slipping right back into his role as soldier and protector, knowing the injured needed to be taken care of, "Go! We got this!"

"Get off the pass!" Olivia ordered, before jumping over the side of the overpass, landing on the ground and running for the bus. She had to trust that Natasha and Sam were as skilled as she believed them to be. There was enough cover above to get them out and both had proven themselves more than capable of handling themselves. Right now, the civilians were not in any position to help themselves.

They needed a medic.

As soon as she got to the bus, she began assessing the injuries, calling out commands for those shaken but not severely wounded to get away from the scene, while she made quick work of getting those worse off out. She ran to Steve first, seeing him knocked out from the crash and shook him awake. Just because she had left Natasha and Sam above did not mean she intended to leave them to fend for themselves for long. She hadn't seen any other damage from where Steve had been thrown off the pass but the bus, he had to still be in there. He didn't appear injured, nor did her lightning quick examination for injuries reveal any that had him gasping or wincing, he was winded and disoriented, but otherwise well enough. Even winded, he would never ever allow himself to sit aside and let others fight when he could help.

"Liv!" he gasped as she woke him, jolting into a siting position with little stiffness.

"Tasha and Sam are on the pass," she told him, "HYDRA hasn't made it down here yet, but we've got injured."

He nodded, understanding her unspoken order. He would go back to the thick of it, help deal with the other agents, she would get the wounded out and stable and then come assist, "On it," he agreed, tightening his grip on his shield and rushing towards the back exit of the bus, giving her cover to help the civilians.

Just because she wasn't among the all-out firefight above, didn't mean she couldn't hear it or see parts of it. The Winter Soldier had fired more missiles. She had glimpsed Natasha out of the corner of her eye as she hefted two passengers who had been knocked out out of the bus, the woman having been blasted off the pass but getting a grappling gun to swing to a run towards the bus. Olivia ducked back into it, able to see the agents and the Winter Soldier approaching that side of the pass and knowing if they saw her they'd start firing again, she couldn't risk the civilians till they were all out of the bus. There were only two more people though. She rushed over to a woman gripping at her leg, and carefully checked her over, breathing a sigh of relief that the leg was not broken and didn't need more tending to, the ankle was sprained though.

She maneuvered the woman into her arms, easily carrying her through the wrecked bus and over to the line of people a block and a half away now being helped by good Samaritans, setting her down when a blur of red caught her attention. Natasha had managed to shoot the Winter Soldier enough to force him to duck back down, the assassin running across the small distance to take cover by the truck that had hit the bus, which gave her enough time to rush back into the bus for the last passenger, sending a nod to Natasha as she caught the woman's eye.

Natasha was trying her best to guard the bus, having seen Olivia dash in there and knowing the Winter Soldier was going to be turning his attention back to this side soon enough. And she was right, for not even 30 seconds later, Olivia was striding out of the bus with a child clutched in her arms, the child clinging to her and sobbing from the fear of everything happening. She emerged just as the Winter Soldier appeared back on the pass, his gun turning towards Olivia, having spotted her. So she took a step past the truck and fired at him instead, drawing his attention back to her, running down the street along the line of cars only when she was sure she'd captured his attention enough to focus on her and not the medic.

Little did she know she was also drawing him away from Steve as well, the man only a few feet away, having dispatched a few agents that made it down from the pass. He, however, did catch sight of her running, of the Winter Soldier following as the man literally jumped off the pass, landed on a car, and began to strut after her.

He looked between Olivia and Natasha, then up to one of the snipers still on the pass, only for the man to disappear and Sam take his place.

"Go!" Sam called down to him, "I got this!"

Steve gave him a single nod of thanks for covering Olivia while she finished up with the civilians, before he took off after Natasha, trying to take a wider approach so the Winter Soldier wouldn't see him following behind.

~8~

Natasha breathed heavily as she hid behind a car, watching as the Winter Soldier stalked down the street, pausing as he heard her voice from behind another car across from her. It was a recording she'd made on her phone as she was running, directions, made to sound like she was calling in help. A distraction was all it was, she didn't doubt the Winter Soldier would go for it, he had no reason to believe she wasn't behind that car. She was tempted to grin when he rolled a grenade under the car, thinking he'd gotten her, the man stepping back and aiming his gun as though waiting for her to notice the grenade and run.

She waited till it exploded, using the sound of it to hide the stomp of her shoes as she ran for him, leaping into the air and kicking the gun out of his hands, catching him by her thighs around his neck to swing up onto his shoulders. She unwound a wire, wrapping it around his neck to try and take him out, but he'd gotten a hand in between. He staggered backwards with force, slamming her against the side of a car and using the jolt to grab her arm, hurling her over his shoulder to the ground. But she was quick, yanking a small device from her sleeve and flinging it at him. It was a small magnetic device that would hopefully immobilize his arm, using the minimal time she knew she'd have before he pried it off to get up and run down the road.

"Get out of the way!" she shouted at the civilians running around her, all of them now aware of the guns in the area, "Stay out of the way!"

She staggered suddenly, dropping to her knees as the glass of a car window next to her shattered, a burning sensation ripping through her left shoulder. This was the second time she'd been shot through by the Winter Soldier, this one hurt a hell of a lot less than when he'd gotten her in the gut, but still sent fire racing through her from the pain. She dropped to her knees, twisting so she was on her butt, backing up towards the car for some semblance of cover, and trying to face down the Winter Soldier…but he wasn't there. She breathed heavily, hefting herself to sit up more against the car, trying to see him…when a thump sounded behind her.

She twisted back onto her knees, a few feet away from the car, to see he'd jumped onto a car just behind the one she was using, aiming a gun at her.

For one brief instant, she felt a flash of fear, staring down the barrel of his gun, knowing the next shot wouldn't miss, wouldn't be a shot meant to slow her down to pick her off easier, it would be fatal. She had been taken down by a bullet and, if she didn't bleed out, she was still going to die at his hands.

But then…a blur dashed in front of her and the sound of electricity crackled to life as the bullets the Winter Soldier fired hit a forcefield instead.

Olivia stood before her, her batons out, blocking the barrage of bullets meant to kill her friend, having rushed after Steve as soon as she finished with the civilians, but going a more direct route than he had.

Another blur, a blue one, streaked from the side, Steve, launching himself at the Winter Soldier as the man brought out his missile launcher instead and knocking him off the car, the force of the hit hurling the weapon only a foot away from where they were.

Olivia turned, dropping to her knees and setting her batons to stand, triggering the forcefield around her and Natasha. Natasha could only watch, her hand pressed to her shoulder, as Olivia, more serious than she'd ever seen the woman, swung her medical pack off her back and onto the ground in one fluid motion. She frowned, staring at Olivia in Medic-Mode, before glancing over her shoulder at where she could see Steve going toe-to-toe with the Winter Soldier, and back to Olivia, the woman seeming unaware of everything around her as she tended to her patient.

She glanced down at her hand as Olivia pulled it away, more at Olivia's hand than her own, the woman was steady as steel, her hands not shaking at all, her face set in concentration, not blanching at the sight of blood or grimacing at the wound, not even seeming to notice the battle going on around her, the carnage being created. The sounds of her partner fighting the Winter Soldier bare handed didn't even seem to register.

She let out a hiss of pain when Olivia shifted her arm slightly to pull part of her jacket away from her shoulder to examine the bullet wound, but was quickly distracted by Olivia's mumbling, not sure the girl even realized she was doing it.

"Went straight through," Olivia spoke under her breath, not even leaning forward to look. It was only then that Natasha realized the woman had seen the shattered car window and logically worked it out that one bullet fired at her would only be able to shatter the glass if it HIT the glass, if it had gone through her. Olivia nodded to herself, "Too close to the heart to elevate the legs," she mumbled, "No lying down," she maneuvered Natasha to sit up more, "Tourniquet won't work, not there, can't risk using just pressure..."

For a split second Natasha wanted to quip that any 'pressure' applied by Olivia or even Steve was probably going to be more than any human could possibly need and, hell, maybe it would stop the bleeding instantly given their strength...when she realized Olivia wasn't just thinking about treating the wound in this moment, but how to best tend to it after the moment passed as well. If the woman used her hands to apply pressure...she'd have to keep them there, she wouldn't be able to move her or help her get away because her hands would need to stay on her shoulder.

Olivia had realized that quickly, "Pressure needs to be held, help will certainly be delayed with the active shooter and HYDRA about...pressure dressing it is," she turned to her bag, rummaging through it and pulling out what looked like a sort of elastic, greyish bandage but with some sort of half-moon-shaped plastic attached to it, "No time to pack the wound, unnecessarily painful too..."

"I can handle it," Natasha tried to tell her, if packing the wound was what would work best, she could bite her lip and bear it.

But Olivia kept on, Natasha would have thought the girl hadn't heard her if not for her shaking her head, "Better option," she pulled out a small, sealed bag, "Hemostatic agents," she placed it on her knee, before pulling out another small bottle, "Need to wash the wound out, this is all going to sting," she warned Natasha, before leaning forward and splashing some of the sterile water against the wound to flush it out. She quickly moved on, ripping the packet open and pressing some of the powder-like substance in it to the front and back of the wound.

Natasha tensed and hissed at the sensation, at the pressure the medic was putting on the wound as well, but bore it.

"Should help stop the bleeding," Olivia continued to mutter, using one hand to pull out a gauze strand to wrap around her shoulder, just to hold the powder in place before she picked up the grey bandage. She made quick work of it, wrapping it around the wound, under the armpit, the half-moon plastic bit resting just over where the entrance wound was. As soon as the bandage passed around once, she slipped it through the half-moon bit and folded the bandage back over itself to go in the other direction from her original wrapping, forcing the plastic part to press against the wound. She took a wad of gauze and placed it behind Natasha's shoulder, at the exit wound, and wrapped over it. It wouldn't be as effective as the plastic in terms of putting pressure on the wound, but it would do. She made sure to use as much of her strength as she could in wrapping Natasha's shoulder, enough to put a great deal of pressure on the affected areas, but not enough to make it into a tourniquet and cut off her circulation or hinder her mobility, "Really should work on getting one of these with the agents already set in..."

As all this happened, Natasha couldn't help but just…watch Olivia in her element. She noticed, when the pain lessened from burning to stinging, to tingling. She noticed, when Olivia turned to her bag and she could see blood and dirt smeared across her clothing. And she noticed, when Olivia stiffened and looked over at Steve, having heard something Natasha hadn't.

She looked over her good shoulder to see that the Winter Soldier was standing a good distance away, his mask completely off his face, but even more…Steve was staring at the man, his arms down, shield limp at his side, in shock and not even close to attacking.

And she realized, it wasn't that Olivia hadn't heard the battle raging around her, she had only worked through it, hearing everything, so she could react if needed, but not letting it affect her concentration. And she had clearly heard the fight Steve and the Winter Soldier had had, she knew why Steve had stopped.

But even Olivia looked startled and shaken by what she'd heard, so startled she wasn't reacting any longer, even when the Winter Soldier began to approach Steve for another attack and was knocked aside by Sam in his Falcon suit.

It was at that point her assassin training kicked in and she turned, rolling on her stomach to switch off one of the batons, lowering the forcefield, so she could grab the missile launching gun the other assassin had dropped, firing it at the Winter Soldier as he tried to aim at Steve again.

The moment seemed to shake Steve and Olivia out of their stupor, Olivia glancing at Natasha once more to make sure the bandage had held, before she was running to Steve's side, her medical pack already slung onto her back once more.

Olivia grabbed his arm, glancing at him and over to where the Winter Soldier had been knocked back, but disappeared, "Steve?"

He could only shake his head, "Bucky," he murmured, in shock, but confirming what she'd heard moments ago, "It was _Bucky_."

Olivia looked back at the smoke, tensing when HYDRA agents began to swarm, cars speeding up to surround them, guns aimed at them demanding they go to their knees. She tightened her grip on Steve's arm, slowly lowering herself to the ground, bringing him with her, the man too stunned to react even as they were taken into HYDRA custody.

Bucky Barnes was _alive_ …and an agent of HYDRA.

A/N: I'm back! :D I'm SO sorry it took so long :( I had a note up on my tumblr a couple weeks ago about what's been going on but for anyone who doesn't frequent that site, the last time I tried to get back to posting, I ended up swapping the part time job I managed to get to working in a bank (pro tip if you are in America on the east coast and really need benefits but can only maintain a part time job, TD Bank offers benefits to part-timers) and very soon after that got another job at a transit company so my work week between the two was Monday through Saturday, from like 5am till 7 pm, which didn't give much time to write since I had to get things ready for the next day and eat and sleep, and Sundays sometimes meant working at another branch if they needed help or catching up on things for the week :( BUT! One of the jobs offered me full time close to the start of the month so I just had to make it two more weeks before things calmed down and I would have a steadier 9-5 sort of job :) I have evenings and weekends back now! :D

What that means for posting is that I'm going to start slow and aim for posting a chapter 2x a week, I'm not sure if it will be specific days or just when I can get one up, but I'm going to push for updates twice a week. If I can manage that I might move it up to two chapters of a main story and one of a spinoff or AU. Currently, I'm planning to get this story finished first, then 1 episode (3 chapters) for Angel's DW story, finishing up Lyssa and Hook's story from OUAT, doing another episode for Angel, finishing Menna and Aragorn's current story for LOTR, another episode of Angel, finish up Sadie's DW story, another episode of Angel, finish Claire and Sheldon's BBT story, and then finish the rest of Angel's story. And when I say 'story' I mean just the current open-unfinished story, not their entire series. Once I get all the open-stories complete, I'll evaluate where I am and work out what stories will come next. So it's going to be slow going, but I'm hoping to gain momentum as I get more used to the hours and flow of the full time position ;)

Now, to get back to this chapter ;)

I know in the movie that Steve got to Bucky first before he could finish off Natasha. But here, he hesitated a few seconds longer when he saw Olivia still in the open, which gave Bucky enough time to get more shots at Natasha, and his intention was to take a wider way around to get behind Bucky without him seeing. As it's been jokingly established, Olivia IS faster than Steve. He's quite likely stronger than her, but she's smaller and faster and she got a tiny bit more of a workout on her legs during the war by carrying various men off the battlefield and needing to still be as fast as always, not-weighed-down she's quite speedy. And her intention was a more direct b-line for Natasha. It sort of shows their different mentalities during the war too. Steve with his missions and using the element of surprise and Olivia with her get-right-to-the-injured-as-fast-as-possible duty. Steve still had his battle with Bucky and Olivia treated Natasha, both displaying their own individual strengths :)

We're going to see more of Steve's reaction to the revelation about Bucky as well as some inner thoughts of Natasha (and perhaps a hard-for-her-to-admit something) about her experience here also.

Some notes on reviews...

Just to start, I'm SO sorry if I worried you guys. I really feel like I'm jinxed and every time I get to a place to start posting again something happens and all those plans just fall apart :( It's part of why I wanted to wait a little after I became full time to make sure I can make it work and I'm fairly confident I'll be able to keep it going so I'm hoping to be back and posting each week :) Family is fine, both my brother and sister moved out so there was a period of helping them get situated, parents are ok health-wise (my dad's job is currently trying to force him to retire but he keeps doing good at it and they have no reasons to actually DO it so he's fine for now), doggies are as fat and lazy as always lol, so hopefully with things more stable updates will stay stable too ;)

I can say that Coulson DID get his end of the deal, he has his own signed artwork from the Cap ;) How/when it happened will be touched on before the series is over ;)

Natasha is truly SO invested in their wedding lol, I love your theory about our dear supersoldiers. We're going to have to wait to see if it's right or close or anything though ;)

I have some fun planned for Mjolnir, for both Olivia and Steve as well as a tiny conversation between them about it, we'll have to wait and see if anything happens for Olivia or if she even attempts it ;)

The funny thing about Natasha's thoughts on someone understanding her, is it's so much based in the movies, with how she opens up to Steve about not being able to find someone with shared life experiences. She seems to think Banner is as close as she'll get, originally I thought it was Clint given how he sort of brought her into the fold (before his secret family was revealed lol), we'll have to wait and see if Bucky might also be an option. I CAN say that Olivia will have an opinion on both Banner and Bucky with Natasha at some point ;)

Oh Endgame, it breaks my heart, in so many ways, on so many levels. Some good moments, some bad, some bittersweet, some tense, some just gut wrenching, we'll have to wait for that roller coaster ride, but I can say that I do have it worked out for Olivia's story ;)

Awww, thank you so much! I really hope you're enjoy the stories you're going through, hopefully some of them will be updated relatively soon lol ;) I'm really very touched you're enjoying them and I appreciate any review people give, it means the world to me, so thank you :')

I can say that Steve is a patient man, he would have to be to deal with the setbacks and bullies he's dealt with in his life, but Natasha's constant pushing about proposing and marriage is going to get to him, probably by the end of this story. So we'll definitely see a resolution to that teasing, what it will be though is something we'll have to wait to see ;) Luckily, if all goes well, we'll only have to wait till the end of next week ;)


	8. Back From the Dead

Back From the Dead

The foursome sat quite squished together along the side of a van as it was led onwards as part of a convoy of HYDRA agents. Olivia, however, was thankful that she was seated next to Natasha, doing her best to keep an eye on the pressure the bandage was putting on the girl's wound. She had gotten Natasha sorted, but with the way the woman had twisted to fire the ballistics at the Winter Soldier…Bucky…she couldn't be sure that the wound hadn't partially opened. She just wanted to make sure her friend was alright.

Though, speaking of friends, while her gaze was on Natasha, she couldn't keep her thoughts off of Steve.

"I still can't believe…it was Bucky?" Olivia couldn't help but ask, the shock of what she'd heard, what he'd said just before HYDRA got them, fading enough, "Are you certain?"

He nodded, "It was him. It was Bucky. I don't know how he survived but it was him."

He didn't know how he felt right at that moment. He was pretty sure he was in shock, his mind racing, trying to make sense of everything. He'd been in the middle of a fight with the Winter Soldier, the man intent to kill not just him but Olivia and his friends as well, anyone that had assisted them. He'd been fighting for his life against what was likely the first opponent since Red Skull that had been an actual challenge to him. The Winter Soldier had matched him in strength, speed, agility...but with a lack of care for himself, any injuries he might have gotten, to slow him down, and no regard for the lives around them. It made him so much more of a threat, there were less distractions to the Soldier but so many more for HIM and that made it all so much more dangerous. The Soldier had tried shooting him, stabbing him, beating him...and when he'd finally gotten the upper hand, torn the mask off his enemy's face...

It was the face of his _best friend_ staring back at him.

His dead best friend.

Not an enemy at all.

But it made no sense to him, at all. Bucky...the Bucky he knew, they fought side by side, they were like brothers, they never ever would have harmed each other, let alone tried to kill each other. But there he was, Bucky, ready to kill him.

Worse yet...there wasn't even a glimmer of recognition in the man's eyes.

What _happened_ to him?

"But he attacked you," Olivia murmured, still quite thrown by THAT fact. It was so…not like Bucky to harm Steve.

"They must have done something to him," he reasoned, "He looked right at me like he didn't even know me," his hands clenched into fists in their own shackles, "Brainwashed him or something. Bucky would _never_ hurt me."

"No," she agreed, "He wouldn't. If I recall from your stories," she smiled, trying to comfort him with a gentle nudge, "He spent quite a lot of time making sure you _weren't_ hurt."

"He always had my back," Steve swallowed, an enormous guilt settling in his stomach.

He hadn't.

He hadn't had Bucky's back in the end.

Bucky had been taken in by the enemy, brainwashed, and set up as an assassin, who knew what other hells he'd lived through and Steve hadn't been there to protect him, to help him, hadn't even tried. He knew that he hadn't known Bucky was alive, but it didn't make him feel any better. He should have known, should have never given up until he saw the body himself, he should have kept searching, done something, anything, to find him. And now, because he hadn't, Bucky was in terrible, terrible danger.

"Then we shall have his," Olivia nodded, determination in her voice that made Steve look over at her for her, "We'll find a way to get him back, I know it."

"How's it even possible he's here in the first place?" Sam had to wonder, "It was like seventy years ago."

"Zola," Olivia realized, looking to Steve as he frowned, it was the only thing that made sense, "Bucky's whole unit was captured in 1943, they thought Zola might have experimented on him when he was the only one in isolation still alive. But when he healed there was never any sign…"

Steve let out a breath, they HAD thought Bucky might have been experimented on, but with Bucky so disoriented during his ordeal, unable to remember anything except pain, the army officials had taken it to mean he'd only been tortured for information which he had refused to give, not that he had much information to share regardless. They hadn't tested Bucky the way they had him and Olivia, but now it seemed clear that something HAD happened, "Whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall. They must have found him and..."

Olivia looked down at that, feeling a ball of guilt settle in her gut as well. SHE had been the one to go look for him first. She had gone down to the river, hoping he might have survived. All she'd found were his dog tags, which she'd given to Steve. If she'd just looked longer, harder, wider…

She glanced over when she felt something nudge her to see Steve looking at her intently. He had guessed where her mind had gone and the guilt welling in her, if she wouldn't let HIM feel it was his fault Bucky had fallen in the first place, he wouldn't let her feel it was her fault Bucky had been found by HYDRA and not herself.

"None of that's your fault," Natasha added, seeing the looks they were both exchanging. She didn't know the whole story, but she knew enough.

Steve let out a sigh, "Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky."

"As I had Peggy," Olivia mused, "We WILL get him back Steve," she promised him, "I didn't stop you back then, I won't stop you now. I'd do the same for Peggy, and I know Bucky would do the same for you."

Sam watched the trio quietly for a moment, "You know what _I_ find strange about all this," he remarked, "How calm you three are. We're about to be taken into your enemy's hands, and we're all just chatting about BFFs."

Olivia gave a small laugh at that, thankful the tension had been broken, "Well, Tasha is fond of talking about anything but the imminent danger, Steve's preferred method for confronting the enemy IS to be captured by them, and I'm not quite convinced we're going to be taken into our enemy's hands."

"And why's that?"

She smiled, "Because one of our so-called-enemies, I'd wager, is about to help us escape."

Sam frowned, following her line of sight to the two guards sitting in the van with them, decked out all in black with black helmets on. He had only JUST turned to do so when one of them whipped out some sort of electronic rod and quickly struck the other one with it, knocking them out. Three of the four prisoners stared as the guard pulled off their helmet to reveal Maria Hill.

"That thing was squeezing my brain," she huffed, taking a breath, before frowning at Sam, "Who's this guy?"

"Better question…how _the hell_ …" Natasha looked at Olivia, a bit startled that SHE hadn't even realized it was Hill sitting there.

Olivia shrugged, "The guard was wearing the same perfume I got Maria for her birthday," she said simply. It wasn't a very well known brand, Tony had helped her dig up what Maria's favorite was, the woman wasn't an open book of personal information. It was a nice scent, something subtle, and she doubted HYDRA agents would be thinking of perfume at a time like this. Honestly, she doubted Maria had even put it on fresh, but her nose and Steve's were bionic now, she'd caught the faint hint of it when they'd been shoved into the car and thought it odd.

She was quite glad her guess turned out to be correct, it would have been quite embarrassing otherwise.

Maria smirked, "Time to go," she told them, pulling out another cylindrical object and infighting an electrical component on the end, before leaning down to cut a hole in the bottom of the car.

~8~

Olivia looked up from helping Natasha out of her jacket, having started to try and get it off her when she saw a man in a doctor's coat rushing towards them down a dark tunnel Hill was guiding them through, and knew her friend would soon be getting more immediate medical attention for her wound, only for the man to suddenly stop and gape at her.

"That's Major Britannia," the man blinked, actually pointing at her.

Olivia would have been a bit amused at how he had noticed HER and not Captain America standing on the other side of Natasha…had it not been for the fact that Natasha had just gotten shot. Her role in the field was to stabilize and move the wounded to a safer location for more specialized treatment. She did what she could with her supplies (she was quite grateful to Maria for grabbing her med-pack and stashing it in the van they were held in), but now there was a doctor in front of them, which suggested some sort of medical facility ahead, and she really would have rather had Natasha seen to first.

"And this is Tasha," Olivia spoke, "She's been shot in the shoulder," she began to detail, "Went clean through, I don't believe it's struck any major muscles from what I've seen of her movements since, but she needs to be treated as soon as possible. I did what I could in the field but…"

"Right!" the doctor jumped to attention, "Yes, of course, let me take her."

"She'll want to see him first," Hill shook her head, leading them further down the tunnel.

"Him who?" Natasha tensed, not sure if she'd like the answer. For all she knew, this was all a trap within a trap and Hill actually was a compromised agent about to take them to the Winter Soldier.

"I'd guess Director Fury," Olivia murmured, causing Hill and the doctor to stop and look at her, the doctor startled, Hill suspicious.

"He had a pulse," Steve defended, "She felt it. Slow, too slow, but there."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Natasha frowned at her.

"He could have just as easily died after he was taken," she reminded the assassin, "I didn't feel right saying it to anyone but Steve till we saw him alive with our own eyes."

Hill made a noise that seemed like a cross between a scoff and a snort, "Well feast your eyes," she huffed, turning them down a corner to a cloth wall, brushing it aside to reveal Fury sitting up weakly on a hospital bed, machinery around him, monitoring his vitals.

"About damn time," Fury muttered, moving to sit up more as Olivia stepped to the side of his bed to check the lines connected to him.

"I don't understand," Natasha moved to sit down on a chair, the doctor coming to double check Olivia's work in a more medical environment.

"Lacerated spinal column, crack…"

"Cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, a collapsed lung, NOT pleased about that one," Olivia grumbled, she had JUST been about to treat one of the wounds to prevent such a thing when the other agents burst into the apartment to haul him off, "And, quite likely, a bit of a terrible headache," she finished, turning around from checking his IV line to see everyone, including Fury, staring at her, "I'm a _medic_ ," she reminded them, "I read his file in the Hospital."

"Where you _died_ ," Natasha shot Fury a look, "They cut you open, your heart stopped."

Fury scoffed, "Tetrodotoxin B. Slows the pulse to one beat a minute. Banner developed it for stress. Didn't work so great for him, but we found a use for it. Docs needed to make it look like I died of those bullet wounds; hard to do when my medic made sure I _wasn't_ dying of those bullet wounds. They had a hell of a time finding a believable time to administer it," he remarked, glancing over at Olivia as she moved back to Steve's side, "You're too damn good at your job."

Olivia frowned at that, "One of the best men I ever knew was shot in front of me and died," she told him, "Because _I_ wasn't fast enough or prepared enough. I swore to myself that was _never_ going to happen again. So don't expect me to apologize for being 'too damn good at my job.'"

Fury chuckled at that, but Steve reached out to take her hand, knowing exactly what she was referring to, when Dr. Erskine passed, shot in front of them both too quickly for her to help save him. Of the best men she knew, four had died and she hadn't been able to help them. Michael Carter, Dr. Erskine, Bucky, and Howard Stark. Those four men had made it into her top five along with himself. HE was still alive though, and he knew Olivia would fight whatever power that came for him to the death herself before she let it claim him too.

Just as he would her.

"Why all the secrecy?" Steve asked, "Why not just tell us?"

"Any attempt on the director's life had to look successful," Hill argued.

Fury nodded, "Can't kill you if you're already dead. Besides, I wasn't sure who to trust."

Olivia couldn't help but notice how Natasha looked away at that statement.

~8~

It seemed with their arrival, Fury had decided it was time for him to stop lazing about and got himself out of the hospital bed, back in his classic black ensemble complete with his beloved black trenchcoat. He had taken them to what appeared to be the command room of his secret facility…not much by way of a literal command room, but the center of his base of operations at least.

He was looking down at a photo of Pierce while the group stood around him, "This man declined the Nobel Peace Prize. He said, 'Peace wasn't an achievement, it was a responsibility.' See, it's stuff like this that gives me trust issues."

Natasha ignored the remark about trust, focusing instead on the danger at hand, "We have to stop the launch."

Fury sighed, "I don't think the Council's accepting my calls anymore," he remarked, turning to open a case that Hill had put on the table before they arrived. Inside were three chips sitting on a cushion.

"What's that?" Sam frowned at the items.

"Once the Helicarriers reach three thousand feet, they'll triangulate with Insight satellites, becoming fully weaponized," Hill said instead.

"We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own," Fury gestured to the chips.

"One or two won't cut it. We need to link all three carriers for this to work, because if even one of those ships remains operational a whole lot of people are gonna die."

"We have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is HYDRA. We need to get past them, insert the server blades, and maybe, just maybe, we can salvage what's left..."

"No," Olivia shook her head.

"We're not salvaging anything," Steve agreed, "We're not just taking down the carriers, Nick, we're taking down SHIELD."

"SHIELD had nothing to do with it," Fury defended.

"SHIELD has _everything_ to do with it," Olivia argued, "Because there is NO SHIELD any longer, it's HYDRA now."

"HYDRA grew right under your nose and nobody noticed," Steve stood with her.

Fury scoffed, "Why do you think we're meeting in this cave? I noticed."

"And how many paid the price before you did?" Steve argued.

"Look, I didn't know about Barnes…"

"This has nothing to do with Bucky," Olivia cut in, a gut feeling telling her that even if Fury HAD known, he wouldn't have said anything. He would have let Steve take out the Winter Soldier and hoped he never discovered he'd literally killed his best friend. She could tell Steve was itching to ask that very question, WOULD Fury have told them or compartmentalized it too? She didn't want the answer, she didn't want Steve to have to hear it, "This has everything to do with the fact that those carriers can kill people. As we said before, that isn't SHIELD. Holding a gun to the world and calling it protection? Security over freedom, that's HYDRA. WE stopped HYDRA," she gestured between herself and Steve, "We gave our lives to stop them, and you lot invited them back in. Zola reestablished the entire order that nearly destroyed the world the first time. We are NOT risking it again."

"You gave us this mission, this is how it ends," Steve nodded, "SHIELD's been compromised, you said so yourself. So it goes. SHIELD, HYDRA, it all goes."

"You let them in once before," Olivia reminded Fury, "You can't even say with certainty which agents of SHIELD are double agents for HYDRA. There's no way to know that the next round in charge of those carriers won't just resume HYDRA's list before you get another chance to stop them."

Hill's jaw clenched, but she turned to Fury, "They're right," she told him, agreeing with the super soldiers. They made points she knew Fury wouldn't want to admit to. But there was too much at stake to risk it now.

"Don't look at me," Sam scoffed when Fury glanced at him and Natasha as though they would take his side, "I do what he does," he gestured at Steve, "Just slower."

Natasha didn't even dine to respond, just crossed her arms as she stepped next to Olivia. Of all the people in that room, the two super soldiers had proven they trusted her more than Fury did, and she had made the mistake of trusting him more than them. She wouldn't make that mistake again. They had seen what everyone else refused to or was blind to, that HYDRA had been at work within SHIELD for a long time.

She hadn't been lying when she said she'd wanted to go straight, and that maybe she couldn't tell what that was anymore.

But watching those two stand up to Fury, she knew that THEY did.

And if they thought this was right, then it was right.

"Well..." Fury sighed, "Looks like you're giving the orders now, Captain."

Steve smirked, "Don't look at me," he mimicked Sam's words with a nod to Olivia, "I do what she does, just slower."

Olivia rolled her eyes and shook her head at him for that reference to the fact that she was, in fact, faster than him, "I DO out rank him," she teased, bumping her hip against him, earning a small smile from him for her effort.

Fury just sighed again, "Looks like we need to draw up a battle plan."

~8~

"Hey," Natasha spoke as she sat down beside Olivia, the woman reading through Fury's latest medical report to make sure he was truly well enough to be part of this mission.

Fury had made a minor mistake pulling Dr. Samuels in from the Olive Branch to treat him in secret. The man had an autographed picture of Olivia on his desk at SHIELD, handed down from his grandparents, and he was NOT about to go against anything the medic said. If she didn't clear Fury herself, neither would he. And if Olivia didn't want Fury involved, Natasha didn't doubt Samuels wouldn't drug Fury into a coma for her just to keep the director away.

"How's your shoulder?" was the first thing Olivia said by way of greeting.

Natasha snorted, shaking her head, she should have expected that.

"Like Fury said," she shrugged, not even a wince following, "You're too damn good at your job."

Olivia gave a small smile to that, "If you experience any pain at all…"

"I'm fine," Natasha cut in, "Really," they fell silent for a moment, before Olivia shut the report, "And the verdict is…"

Olivia sighed, "He's cleared, BUT," she added, "Only if he's accompanied by another agent. I don't trust him not to get too invested and rip half the things holding him together."

"Sounds like Fury," Natasha agreed, thinking the man just might go for it, with what he had in mind he hadn't planned to go in alone either, "Hey," she reached out to lightly grip Olivia's wrist as the woman stood to go give Fury the ultimatum, "I just…I wanted to say thanks."

"Tasha…" Olivia shook her head, about to brush it off. It was her JOB to do what she did, and even if it wasn't, she'd still help where she could.

"And say I'm sorry," she continued as though Olivia hadn't spoken.

Olivia sat back down, a small frown on her face, "What do you have to be sorry for?"

Natasha was silent for a moment, organizing her thoughts, and reorganizing her perspective on quite a few things, "I'm sorry that I pushed you so much to learn to fight, that I thought you needed to pick up a weapon."

"You were concerned," Olivia defended, "You wanted me to be prepared."

"I mean, yeah, that was part of it but…" she sighed, not sure she really wanted to say what she'd fully been thinking but...the roles she mentioned before? She had trusted Olivia to save her life and now it was her turn to be honest, Olivia deserved the entire truth, "I honestly didn't think we needed you," she told the woman, "Back when we first met, I didn't see the point in having you there. I mean…" she shook her head at how wrong she'd been, "We go after Loki and you just looked over the crowd. Thor steals him, you come back injured. And I thought, well, it's because she can't fight so she can't defend herself. In New York it's not like you were able to help a lot of people since we were all focused on fighting or evacuating. I mean, yeah you tended to some of the injured on the helicarrier but Coulson…"

Olivia had to bite her tongue to keep from speaking about that. As far as everyone but she, Fury, Hill, and Steve knew, Coulson had died during Loki's attack, to everyone else, her efforts to help him had failed. So she could see where Natasha was coming from in that regard.

From Natasha's point of view, she hadn't done much in actually BEING a medic, or being useful as one. Not many had been injured in Germany, Natasha hadn't SEEN her treat any wounded SHIELD agents, nor did she know the truth about Coulson, and in New York she hadn't been near enough to actually treat anyone as a medic would unless one counted Thor once the fight was over. To Natasha, she likely appeared quite useless.

"I thought, well if she can fight then she'll be worth something," Natasha winced at how that sounded, but it was true, "I honestly didn't think about any of us getting injured, or shot," she gestured at her shoulder, "In my world it's kill or be killed, don't let them walk away and get another shot at you."

"I understand," Olivia murmured, a little hurt but truly able to understand how Natasha viewed everything.

"I was wrong though," Natasha turned to her, "I was wrong about everything. I saw you, today, you were pulling people out of a bus two at a time, protecting children, making sure THEY lived. And then, you got to me too. You protected me, and not by fighting an enemy, but by treating MY wounds. I'd be a lot worse off if you hadn't gotten to my shoulder when you did."

She'd have been a hell of a lot worse off if Olivia hadn't gotten in the path of bullets for her when she did.

"Seriously, you were…" she shook her head, not sure how to describe it, "There was a firefight around us, an assassin trying to kill your partner, I was bleeding out, and you just…handled it."

"Well, to be fair, not the worst place or wound I've treated," Olivia offered modestly.

It struck Natasha then that, for all her teasing about Olivia and Steve's ages, her jokes about things they'd missed, it hadn't _really_ gotten through to her all they'd sacrificed and lived through. They had come straight out of a WAR, an actual, literal war, not some random battle in New York or car chase in DC, a bloody, gruesome, devastating war with fields littered with dead bodies and not all of them in one piece. It wasn't one battle and the fight was over, it was continuous, never ending for them, one battle after another after another. And she knew, for all her comments on Steve being the soldier of the two of them, Olivia had _seen_ more of the actual war than Steve had. SHE had been the one picking the wounded off the field, tending them, having to walk past those she couldn't help, having to step over the dead to get the living to safety. She had been the one to see the carnage…

And now that she really thought about it, Olivia's words back when she and Hill had tried to teach her to fight made more sense. Olivia had spoken of not wishing war on anyone, she had seen that destruction and she didn't want to cause it.

But she hadn't listened to the girl, she'd chalked it up to the delicate female sensibilities of the 40s making a mountain out of a molehill given that Olivia wasn't literally ON the front lines and just tried to find a loophole, a non-lethal weapon. Instead of letting Olivia be who she was and do what she was trained to do and specialized in, she'd all but forced a weapon into the medic's hand and told her to use it instead, as though her skills weren't necessary or needed.

But they _were_ , she got that now, they _so_ were.

If Olivia hadn't gotten to that bus when she did, people could have died or lost limbs or suffered even more trauma to know there was no one there to help them or willing to risk being shot to come help them. If she hadn't gotten to Fury when she had, the man might have really died. And if she hadn't taken care of her shoulder? For all she knew she might have actually bled out or lost the arm and then where would she be? Turned into a one-armed assassin? Would SHIELD have given her her own metal arm?

Seeing Olivia in her element, doing what she did? It was…an eye opening experience. To be that calm in the middle of a battle, to treat wounds that were worse than her own, to end up covered in other people's blood and still keep going? To not give up?

She was never _ever_ going to make the mistake of questioning Olivia's worth or strength again.

"I'm sorry," Natasha repeated, "That I ever tried to make you something you weren't, that I overlooked what you ARE. I know how that feels, I'm sorry I did it to you."

"You did bring up fairly good points," Olivia reminded her, "I can still help and treat wounds, but I can also help keep the wounds from occurring."

Natasha nodded, "Thanks," she added, "For helping me see that protecting people doesn't just mean fighting enemies, but making sure people _are_ safe while doing it."

Olivia smiled, "And thank you, for helping me see that weapons don't have to cause harm, they can help and protect too."

Natasha smiled at that and held out her fist, laughing quite loudly when Olivia mistook her initial motion for a high-five and hit her palm to Natasha's fist instead.

~8~

Steve stood on a bridge just outside the secret base, looking down at the water, his thoughts drifting back to Bucky, still not able to believe that the Winter Soldier was him, that he didn't even seem to know who he was anymore. Of all the people he'd known in his life, Bucky was the one who always knew him, was there for him. Olivia came at a close second, having seen the heart of him even in his scrawny little body, but Bucky had known him his entire life.

Bucky had been there when his father died, when his mother followed. He'd cornered him after her funeral, offered him to stay the night with him and his folks. Bucky had reminded him that just because he COULD get by on his own, didn't mean he HAD to. Because Bucky would always be there, to the end of the line.

God, it felt like he was losing his best friend all over again.

"He's gonna be there, you know?" Sam's voice cut through his thoughts, though he didn't look away from the water even as Sam approached.

"I know."

"Look," Sam sighed, coming to rest on the railing of the bridge, his back to the water, "Whoever he used to be, the guy he is now, I don't think he's the kind you save. He's the kind you stop."

Steve shook his head, "I don't know if I can do that."

Sam nodded, understanding, but felt he had to warn, "Well, he might not give you a choice. He doesn't know you."

"I think he will," another voice cut in, this time Steve looked away to see Olivia standing there in her uniform, apparently Hill had somehow managed to track down his bike and steal their uniforms out of it before it was confiscated by HYDRA. She offered Steve a small smile, "Steve is quite hard to forget, especially to someone like Bucky."

She didn't need to say more for Steve to understand. The way he and Bucky were, was the same way she and Peggy were. If Peggy could still remember even a scrap of Olivia, then there was a chance Bucky could remember him as well. A bond like the ones they shared with their best friends didn't break that easy.

"It time?" Steve called to her.

She nodded, "Gear up."

"You gonna wear that?" Sam asked as he followed Steve back into the base with Olivia, nodding at his casual clothing whereas Olivia had already suited up, "Go incognito?"

Steve shook his head, "No. If you're gonna fight a war, you gotta wear a uniform."

Olivia's lip quirked up slightly, just guessing which uniform he was referring to. While HER old outfit would help no one, his might help jog someone's memory…

~8~

A poor old security guard at the Smithsonian Museum was, quite possibly, having an even worse day than Captain America for, on HIS shift, the uniform the American hero had worn during WWII went missing from its mannequin, stolen.

"Oh, man. I am so fired!"

A/N: I feel like that conversation between Olivia and Natasha was a long time coming. For someone like Natasha, it really is kill or be killed and injuries are treated after the fight is over by some nameless member of the Olive Branch, which means she isn't in such a bad place as to not be able to get to the medical attention. But to be _that_ close to the fire where she literally couldn't keep fighting because of her injury, and have someone personally making sure she was ok and lived to see another day while all that chaos is going on? I think it was something she needed to see and experience. Compared to what Captain America did in Avengers, Natasha didn't really see much of Olivia doing anything 'important' to her. To her, they are all a team of specialists and they are good at their jobs so why would they need a medic? THEY aren't going to get hurt, their enemies are. The people who did get hurt around them, Olivia either didn't get a chance to treat or the ones she did treat died any way or she didn't SEE her treat them. If she's not needed as a medic, then she needs to be needed as another fighter which they can always do with more of.

NOW though, she's seen Olivia in her element, she's seen the stress of such a situation and how Olivia jumps in to help and make sure things don't get worse. She gets it now, why Olivia was brought on and what she does and how important it is. Being the one who needed to be 'carried off the field' has helped her see how much Olivia is needed in a medic capacity. I feel like Natasha's mentality sort of mimics the theme from other areas of both war and this series. SO many people remember the soldiers of the wars and thank them for their duties, but not many look to the medics who saved their lives. Natasha has seen it now though, and she has a new appreciation and respect for Olivia :)

Lol, Fury you're SO lucky Olivia is so damn good at her job ;) In this story, I imagine him going to Steve and Olivia's having a tiny bit more to do with Olivia being there because he saw her save Coulson and maybe the medic could help him too ;)

I can say the next chapter might have a bit of a surprise for Natasha, whether it's good or bad, I won't say };)

Some notes on reviews...

Thank you all so much for your welcome backs! It meant the world to me to see and I'm so glad to be back too, I really am looking forward to everything to come ;) I also wish anyone else in the same boat with updating all the best with their stories too :) Being an adult stinks when it takes time away from writing what we love :/ But it happens :( Just means we have to pause and reevaluate where we are and go from there ;)

Oh America's ass was hysterical lol :) We'll have to wait and see what Endgame has in store for our heroes ;)


	9. Taking Down SHIELD

Taking Down SHIELD

One good thing about Fury being 'dead' was that SHIELD hadn't erased Hill's access to the Triskelion. For all that SHIELD was concerned, she was trying to track down who had shot Fury, off the grid so as not to be found, but still 'working' for SHIELD. It had been easier than it would have been to break into the facility with her help. She had access and clearance and so they quickly found themselves just outside the door to the control room. Olivia glanced at Steve beside her, Sam and Hill before her, and reminded herself that she had been right to insist on this formation, her with them and Natasha with Fury.

She didn't think she'd be able to keep Fury in line the way Natasha could if the man tried to do more than he should with his injuries. Given how Natasha was still quite peeved with Fury, she didn't put it past the woman to shoot him with a sedative dart gun or use some sort of assassin knockout technique to keep Fury from over doing it. And Fury would be well aware of the bridge he'd burned in not trusting Natasha. That and, given Fury was about to face Pierce, he would need someone willing to shoot to kill beside him.

And…perhaps it was a little to do with what Natasha had said before, what her original thoughts had been on having a medic from WWII as part of the team but not fighting alongside the team. It had always been something she and Steve struggled with, the feeling of not being good enough. She knew she was now, she'd earned that right to be 'good enough' as a Medic. But this went past that. This was about doing as she had always seen Steve do, standing up for what was right and pushing back. She hadn't lied all those years ago when she told him she could do with some lessons in how to push back like he did. There had never been a more important time to push back, to prove her worth as medic and as super soldier.

She had the same abilities as Steve, more in some areas, less in others, similar to him compared with her. There were three helicarriers, they needed three people to board them and take them out. Steve, Sam, and Hill would be qualified to do it…but that left the control room unguarded. Someone had to stay there and Hill was the only one familiar with this base and its tech.

SHE would be on that third craft. She would be the one to infiltrate it and take it down. It had to be her, she had to prove, not just to herself but to others, that she COULD do this. That she had worth outside of being a medic just as much as she did being one.

And, perhaps, she wanted to _know_ she could do it as well. Much like how Steve didn't know what he would be outside of being a soldier, she truly didn't know what she could be outside of a medic. She didn't know if she COULD be anything but a medic, but being one meant helping, protecting, keeping people safe. And this would be just that.

"Triskelion command request we clear the area for launch," a man's voice came over the PA system just as they reached the door to the control room.

The door opened, a tech about to leave, only to hold his hands up when he saw the guns in Sam and Hill's hands, pointed at him.

"Excuse us," Steve offered, pushing past the man as he stepped aside.

Hill walked right over to the controls, quickly switching on the comms. all through the building. She gave Steve a nod and he stepped up to the microphone, leaning forward slightly to rest his hands on either side of it.

"Attention, all SHIELD agents," he began, "This is Steve Rogers and Olivia Williams," he glanced at Olivia as she nodded encouragingly at him, "You've heard a lot about us over the last few days, some of you were even ordered to hunt us down."

"I don't appreciate that, thank you very much," Olivia couldn't help but mutter under her breath, earning the smallest of chuckles from Steve as he was sure it had been picked up by the mic.

"But I think it's time you know the truth," he continued, "SHIELD is not what Liv or I thought it was, it's not what you think it is either. It's been taken over by HYDRA. Alexander Pierce is their leader. The STRIKE and Insight crew are HYDRA as well. We don't know how many more, but we know they're in the building. They could be standing right next to you. They almost have what they want: absolute control. They shot Nick Fury and it won't end there. If you launch those Helicarriers today, HYDRA will be able to kill _anyone_ that stands in their way…" he looked at Olivia once more, feeling a twisted sense of déjà vu settle over him, how many more times would he and his best girl be forced into this position because others hadn't stepped up to do what was right? Well it was time to find out who would step up now, "Unless we stop them," he sighed and turned back to the microphone, "We know we're asking a lot, but the price of freedom is high, it always has been, and it's a price we're willing to pay. A price we _have_ paid and will pay again if we need to. And if we're the only ones...then so be it. But both of us are willing to bet we're not."

He flicked off the microphone and straightened up, letting out a breath.

"Did you write that down first?" Sam asked, trying to crack the tension, "Or was it off the top of your head?"

"He's quite the brilliant speech maker," Olivia informed them.

"I had a great teacher," Steve offered her a soft smile, knowing she had been the orator of the two of them, always reading books on heroes and how they inspired their people. She had been the one carted off across her county to give speeches and interviews while he'd been stuck in tights with showgirls, uttering the same lines and hearing the same songs over and over. It was her silver tongue that had gotten her Prime Minister to allow her to join him on his overseas tour, had been her arguments to the government that finally got them to agree to join Major Britannia and Captain America together, though likely not quite as entrenched IN the war as her government had first expected.

"Oh, you were quite talented in your own right," she countered, her smile just as soft, "How else do you convince a girl to agree to marry you in the middle of a warzone?"

" _He already proposed_?!" Natasha's voice cut into the sweet moment, her words sounding in their comm., making Olivia wince at the loudness of it in her ear.

"Decades ago, as it were," Olivia confirmed, earning a chuckle from Steve.

For as much as he pretended to be annoyed at Natasha's constant comments about them getting married, he was quite amused to watch her react to some tidbits of information, little comments that let her draw her own conclusion about things. A remark here or there and she would go from planning their wedding to mapping out how he should propose. It was fun to keep the 'all-knowing' assassin on her toes.

But now she had confirmation that Steve HAD proposed already.

Olivia always remembered it fondly. It had been Christmas, literally Christmas Day. The Commandos had all scrapped together tiny gifts, mostly recycled necessities, or a bottle of beer for each other, some sort of item for her medical pack for her. Bucky had been in on it, had managed to somehow steal mistletoe from a nearby village and hung it up. Steve had gotten Peggy over for a brief stay, something about how she should check in on their progress and plans for the SSR. SHE had thought Peggy was her Christmas gift as it had been a surprise to her to step out of her tent to see Peggy there beaming at her. But that was only the tip of the iceberg. Peggy had brought a small record player with her and some additional provisions, they'd had a tiny feast that night, a bonfire burning. She and Steve had had one of those dances neither of them ever thought they'd get to have with the right partner. And he'd tugged her over to the mistletoe, kissed her far too quickly than she'd have liked, but excused himself as needing all the luck and Christmas magic he could manage…before he got onto one knee, a ring in his hands and the most beautiful speech she honestly couldn't remember a word of on his lips.

The commandos had barely let her squeak out a 'yes!' before they were all loudly cheering and clapping as she fell onto her knees to kiss him properly, which only served to make their cheers louder. Peggy had cried, Bucky had gotten drunk, both just SO happy for their friends, to find peace and joy in such a time, in the middle of a literal warzone.

The ring had been beautiful in its simplicity, apparently having belonged to Steve's mother, Sarah. There had been a brief point, around the summertime, when Bucky had gotten leave to go to America for a very short break. They had thought it was to receive another evaluation after his time being tortured by HYDRA to make sure he was still fit to serve, and it had. But Bucky, the sneak, had also gone to Steve's apartment, dug out Steve's mother's ring, and returned with it…much to Steve's surprise as he hadn't asked his friend to do such a thing. From what Steve had told her later, Bucky had seen the way they looked at each other and told Steve it was best if he kept it with him…knowing his friend, he'd propose the second the war was won. Steve had surprised him by admitting he didn't think he could wait that long to call his best girl HIS.

Neither could she, when she thought back on it and how she and Peggy had scrambled to find a gift equally as wonderful as the one he had gotten her. The small box of colored pencils she'd saved for his original gift hadn't seemed enough after that.

"They're initiating launch," Hill's voice cut in, halting any other words or outcries from Natasha, the monitors showing the helicarrier launch sequence was starting.

It was time.

~8~

Olivia stood in the middle of Steve and Sam as the elevator they were taking to the top of the Triskelion raced along, gripping the ends of her batons tightly in one hand, her other hand clasped tightly in Steve's, which he'd taken when they'd stepped into the lift. It wasn't lost on her how his grip tightened the further up they went. She wasn't sure if his mounting tension was from the fear of having to face his best friend once more on opposing sides of a battlefield, or the fact that she would be in the thick of it with him this time. It had been one thing in New York, when they were mostly surrounded by allies, and another thing entirely with their plan now, where they each would be on their own on a different craft.

"At least I managed to pop off to the loo first," she murmured, squeezing his hand once more, trying to lighten all their nerves, which did earn her a small chuckle from him.

"We sure about this?" Sam asked, only the second time someone had brought up the plan once they'd settled on it.

Steve didn't even hesitate to nod, "Very."

Despite the serious and likely very dangerous situation they were about to step into as soon as the doors opened, Olivia couldn't help the small smile that made its way onto her face at the conviction in his voice. He had been the only one to nod along and agree when she suggested SHE go onto the third helicarrier instead of Natasha or Hill.

Steve caught sight of her smile, of the faint blush that had spread across her cheeks at his belief in her. He had seen it in the expressions on the others' faces when Olivia made her suggestion, and for a split second he couldn't understand their hesitation with her plan. Olivia had all the endurance, speed, and strength he did. She had been right beside him in infiltrating a HYDRA base in the middle of a war. She had jumped out of planes, scaled walls, leapt across burning chasms, survived being in a crashing plane and being frozen. Only a few short hours ago she had disabled a number of SHIELD agents to ensure he would be safe.

It had been the last few thoughts that had made him realize why they hesitated.

They didn't know.

They hadn't been there.

They hadn't really SEEN her in action before.

He had all the faith in the world in her skills and abilities, because he'd seen them on full display, where the others only had brief comments in files to go on. They hadn't seen how much she'd grown from the medic on the fields of WWII to now, the fact that she even volunteered to be the third carrier, knowing what they might encounter, spoke volumes to him. If she was willing to do this, he was going to believe in her the way she had always believed in him, even before the serum made him what he was.

The doors opened just then, revealing bright daylight, the roof of the Triskelion, and the helicarriers a short distance away.

They looked at each other, nodding firmly, before they took off running across the roof.

"Hey, Cap, how do we know the good guys from the bad guys?" Sam called over to them.

"If they're shooting at you, they're bad," Steve answered simply.

Sam nodded and activated his Falcon suit, taking off into the air just as they reached the edge of the roof. Steve gave Olivia one more glance, both of them nodding, serious, before they leapt off the roof as well, landing quickly and rolling to their feet to take off in diverging directions across the platform that the helicarriers were stationed at the end of. While Sam flew for the second one, and Steve ran for the first, Olivia focused on the third.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Olivia found it the tiniest bit funny that she, being a blur of red, was not being targeted quite as heavily as the blur of blue that was Steve. Against the grey of the platform, she stood out quite a good deal more. But, then again, Steve and Sam, soaring above, were probably classified as much higher threats than the errant medic. She wouldn't put it past SHIELD to identify her as an easier target to take out, or one that required less effort to fell.

She could see Steve out of the corner of her eye, dashing past soldiers shooting at him, flipping over containers, causing explosions. She could see Sam flying above her, being shot at but avoiding the bullets. But that was all she could afford as the soldiers seemed to realize she was there now that she was halfway to the carrier and had begun to try and stop her as well. She activated her batons before her, creating a small shield as she was fired at.

"I found those bad guys you were talking about!" Sam's voice called over the comm. in her ear.

"Are you alright Sam?" she called back.

"I'm not dead yet!"

"Let's stay that way," Steve ordered.

Olivia gave a quick glance around, quickly calculating angles when a grenade was thrown at her by one of the attacking soldiers. She kicked it as she ran, sending it flying back towards a group of approaching soldiers, but more towards a large crate nearby, causing that to explode and shock them back instead of landing in the middle of them and doing serious injury.

She may have taken on this mission, but that did NOT mean she would attack to kill, not if she could help it.

"Falcon," Hill's voice spoke, "Status?"

"Engaging," Sam called back as Olivia ducked to the side behind a row of crates and sprinted down them, hoping to get to the end and closer to the third carrier before the smoke cleared from the grenade, "Alright," Sam reported, "I'm in…shit!"

"Be careful!" Olivia shouted back, hearing gunfire over the comm. from his efforts, and hearing a number of grunts from Steve and the men he was engaging as well, "Both of you!"

She stopped short, seeing a line of soldiers before her, their guns aimed at her, and looked to the side and back. Before she took a leaf out of Natasha's book and held her arm up, activating the grappling hook she'd been given by the assassin just before they parted ways. She has the foresight to think of what might happen if they were pushed off the carriers. Steve had refused it, the only one she'd had, insisting Olivia take it. And it appeared a good thing she had, for it hooked above her, yanking her up towards the carrier as the soldiers fired at her.

"Eight minutes!" Hill warned them.

"Working on it!" Steve responded.

"Almost there," Olivia added, reaching the top of the hook, but not close enough to the upper deck to get over onto it. She released a length of the rope, and began to swing, ready to use the momentum of her movements to hurl herself up onto the deck when she reached the optimum point.

It felt like a lifetime, but she finally got the right force, and released the hook as she propelled herself up, grabbing onto the railing and hauling herself over the edge.

"Alpha locked," Steve reported.

Olivia let out a breath at that, one down, two to go.

"Falcon, where are you now?" Hill asked.

"I had to take a detour!" he shouted.

Olivia looked up, hearing a sound of an explosion to see a missile had struck the side of one of the carriers.

"Oh, yeah!" Sam cheered, "I'm in. Bravo locked."

"Two down, one to go," Hill remarked.

Olivia nodded to herself, "On it," she took a breath, about to turn and run into the control room of the last carrier, when an odd noise reached her, causing her to tense as she turned much slower than she intended to.

The breath she had just taken left her at the sight of the man standing before her, metal arm glistening in the sunlight, gun aimed right at her.

"Bollocks," she muttered, before jumping to the side as he fired a miniature missile at her, "We've got company!" she warned.

"Liv?" Steve's voice called out.

"May need some backup," she panted, rolling to the side as yet another missile flew.

"Charlie Carrier's 45 degrees off your port bow, Cap," Hill spoke, "Six minutes."

"Sam, I'm gonna need a ride," Steve yelled.

"Roger!" Sam replied, "Let me know when you're ready."

"I just did!" Steve shouted, grunting when Sam caught him as he jumped off the side of the first carrier, "Liv, status?"

Olivia couldn't respond, thinking quickly as she aimed the grappling hook once more, the end managing to grasp the missile launcher, and hit the button to retract it, pulling it out of Bucky's hands, "Bucky, you don't want to do this!" she called out to the man instead.

"Who the hell is Bucky?" the Winter Soldier demanded.

Olivia frowned at that, shaking her head, for a moment not understanding why he was asking the very same thing she'd heard him ask Steve only hours ago...when her eyes widened as a horrible realization dawned on her, "No..." she breathed.

Whatever HYDRA had done to him to make him forget Steve, they'd done it _again_. She was sure of it. The man sounded like he had never even heard the word 'Bucky' before. And there was only one thing she could think of for why, if he'd been forced to forget it.

And then, an even greater shock struck her.

HYDRA would have had no need to brainwash him again...unless he gave them a reason to feel the need to do so.

Unless he might have remembered Steve!

The small blossom of hope she felt unfurling within her at the thought was quickly pushed aside as the man used her shock against her and grabbed one of the many guns on his person to fire at her. Only her quick reflexes saved her as she activated her batons for the shield.

Olivia grit her teeth as Bucky began to walk towards her, still firing, until he was close enough to swing at her with the gun. She jumped back, deactivating the shield to use the batons to defend herself instead.

But Bucky seemed to guess her moves, adapting to the use of her batons, and wedging his metal arm between one of her defensive moves, grabbing her around the throat and hurling her back over his shoulder, off the side of the upper deck. He strode after her, jumping down onto the lower deck where she had fallen in a heap.

"Liv!" she heard a voice shout, recognizing it instantly.

"Steve, no!" she called, trying to warn him as he ran towards her, having been brought right to the lower deck by Sam.

The Winter Soldier ran from the side, slamming into Steve and sending him toppling over the side of the carrier.

"Steve!" she gasped, pushing herself up and rushing to the side railing as Sam distracted the assassin by attacking him.

When she didn't see him plummeting to the ground, she gripped the railing tightly, knowing it meant he was still somewhere on the carrier, just below. She looked over at Sam, seeing he had been grounded, one of the wings on his suit ripped off. She could tell, just in how Bucky was bracing himself as he ran at Sam, that he was about to kick the man off the carrier. She knew Sam's suit had a built in parachute though, she knew he'd be safe…the rest of the world wouldn't be if she didn't get Charlie Carrier locked. She hit her hands on the railing before running back into the ship, using Sam's distraction to get in without Bucky seeing.

"Steve?" she called into the comm.

"I'm here!" his voice reassured her, "I'm still on the Helicarrier."

She nodded to herself, rushing up a set of stairs, knowing she had to get up higher, "I'm headed to the control room. Sam's been grounded."

"Meet you there."

She nodded to herself, racing up flight after flight, until she reached the control center. She didn't even pause, dashing across the walkway towards the controls. She retracted her batons, slipping them into her holsters, knowing she needed to be quick. Using one hand, she fished the chip out of her utility belt using her other to activate the sequence to bring the control chips out so she could replace one with her own.

The panel with the chips had just swung out to her when a gun went off and she nearly fell against the panel from a combination of pain and force from the bullet. She looked down seeing herself bleeding from a blast to her side, not enough to graze the side of her stomach area, but shot through the side of her abdomen. She twisted, her face set in a grimace to see the Winter Soldier striding towards her, eyes intent, gun in hand. She turned, trying to get the chip in, managing to yank the one out of the panel…when a metal hand clamped around her wrist and hauled her back, slamming her wrist into the edge of the railing. She held onto the chip the first two slams, but the third one hit at an angle that forced her hand open, the chip fell.

She was shoved back, the Winter Soldier aiming his gun at her once more…when a blur of blue slammed into him, sending two men over the edge of the railing.

"Steve!" Olivia gasped, rolling to her side to see Steve and Bucky landing below, just where the chip had fallen. She panted, knowing she wouldn't be of much help to Steve if she didn't get herself sorted.

With a grimace she yanked her medical pack off her back, scrambling through it for the most basic items she could find. She used her teeth to rip the packaging off of a bandage, literally a wide band-aid, and tearing at the hole in her clothing where the bullet had gone through, and slapped the bandage on over one side of the wound, and another on the back.

She took a few deep breaths, knowing she didn't need to worry about shock the way most others would. The serum had helped with her pain tolerance and her healing. She wasn't about to waste medical supplies on herself when she could bear the pain better and endure longer than others.

She grit her teeth, closing her eyes for just a moment. She did what she always did when she was injured post-serum, she thought of a moment in her past where she'd been hurting, hurting much worse than she was now, and used that memory to push past the fire coursing through her from her current injury. This was nothing compared to what she'd lived through, if she could endure that, then this was nothing. Her hand shot out and grabbed around the railing, hauling herself up. She looked down, seeing Steve jumping to the bottom level of the control center, racing to where the chip had fallen even farther. Bucky had jumped just behind him, flinging Steve's shield at him and knocking him down, before aiming his gun at Steve.

Without even thinking, she jumped over the railing, practically flying down to the bottom level and slamming into Bucky, much like she had the enemy agent on the ship days ago, knocking him to the side, rolling to the side herself, half flipping over as she went to get back on her feet. Bucky glared at her as he strode towards her, Steve momentarily forgotten, but Steve refused to allow his best friend to go after his best girl, throwing himself at Bucky.

The Winter Soldier pulled out a knife, trying to stab Steve with it, managing to get him in the shoulder, before Steve headbutted him to release him. Bucky moved to grab the chip, and Steve threw himself at the man again, managing to get him by the throat and slam him down, twisting so he had Bucky by the back of the neck with his arm caught. When it became clear Bucky wouldn't drop the chip, he turned even more, getting Bucky in a headlock.

Olivia ran forward, grabbing Bucky's metal arm when it shot out to try and hit Steve, holding it down so Steve wouldn't be hurt.

The second Bucky lost consciousness and released the chip, Steve released him.

"Liv?" Steve turned to her, a question in his eyes he didn't need to say out loud.

"Go," she half-ordered, moving to kneel next to Bucky, "I'll monitor him."

Steve let out a breath at how she just knew where his mind had gone. With his new strength, he never would have roughhoused with Bucky back in the day, too afraid to hurt him. Now that the man appeared as enhanced as them, as enduring, he had used more of his strength than he ever would against a normal human. But even then, he didn't know how much was too much and his mind had immediately gone to the fear that he had truly just killed his friend instead of knocked him out, or done some other damage to his neck that might kill him. Having Olivia there to monitor him, not just keep an eye on 'the enemy' but truly tend to Bucky…it was a blessing.

And he knew, had it been anyone else, Bucky wouldn't be monitored but restrained, apprehended, and dragged back to the ground in someone's custody. They would see him as an enemy, hell they might even refuse to monitor him or check his wounds because of that. Not with Olivia. Even if it hadn't been Bucky specifically, she would still show them the same amount of concern and care.

In all the time he'd known her, the only person she hadn't instantly treated was Loki, citing he wasn't human and her job was to heal the humans. Though he'd seen her treat Thor, an honorary human as she'd remarked to him later. Even then, it did make sense to refuse Loki. Being non-human, there was no telling if human medicine might have an adverse effect or cause more harm than good.

He gave her a quick nod and turned to rush off, the chip clutched tightly in his hand.

"One minute," Hill's voice warned in their ears as Steve scrambled back up to the Helicarrier's targeting system.

Olivia bit her lip, glancing between Bucky and Steve. She was holding Bucky's real hand in both of hers, one of her hands pressed against his wrist to monitor his pulse, steady and strong, which was a good sign Steve hadn't done too much damage. Seeing him reach the top level, she focused more on Bucky, leaning over him slightly to examine his neck where Steve had gotten him in a chokehold.

It happened in an instant that her focus was on Bucky's neck and her hands occupied by his, so suddenly not even is heart rate indicated it. His eyes snapped open, his metal hand shot out, and Olivia found her own hands flying up to his metal wrist as his hand closed around her neck, trying to crush it.

Steve must have heard her grunt or gasp of surprise suddenly cut off for he spun around to see his best friend trying to choke his best girl to death, "Liv!"

He seemed about to drop the chip and hurl himself over the railing back down to her side, when Olivia used the grip she had on Bucky's arm as leverage to swing her feet up, slamming them to his chest and using the force to push him back, pulling herself out of the grip he had on her neck, the two of them falling to the ground.

"Finish it!" she shouted up to him, her voice a little hoarse from the trauma, but able to breathe now.

Steve heeded the order, turning to finish his mission, the sooner he got the carrier taken care of the sooner he could help Olivia.

Olivia quickly got to her feet and ran towards Bucky as the man seemed to notice Steve inches away from the controls and had his gun out. He'd fired once at Steve, catching him in the thigh before Olivia managed to distract him enough with her approach that he turned his attention to her. She activated her batons quickly, shielding herself from the next round of shots he fired at her, able to see Steve out of the corner of her eye slowed down by the bullet in his leg, but still moving towards the controls. She had to get the gun out of Bucky's hands before he tried to shoot Steve again.

Not only did she not want Steve hurt, but she knew Bucky, when he came to his right mind once more, would be devastated to have harmed his best friend, his brother, in such a way.

"Thirty seconds, Cap!" Hill warned them.

"Stand by!" Steve reported, drawing Bucky's focus back to himself.

Olivia saw him aim the gun up at Steve and quickly swung her batons upwards, knocking his aim towards the sky, sending the bullet to the ceiling. Bucky, however, used the force of it to swing his arm back down, turning with it, moving back to face her and firing.

She gasped, feeling a searing pain in her shoulder as Bucky managed to get a shot at her, similar to Natasha, but the bullet didn't go all the way through. She grit her teeth and used the momentum of the shot, the way it reactively made her body pull to one side to get away from the pain. She turned, dropping to her knees as she went and swinging out her other arm, refraining from wanting to reach up to grip her shoulder with it, to swing out the baton and take Bucky's legs up from the back of the knees, the assassin clearly not expecting either her to continue fighting or to not be outwardly affected by the shot. She jumped to her feet, kicking out and using the split second of startlement to kick the gun out of Bucky's hand.

That was one thing she and Steve had over others that had nothing to do with the serum, this ability to push past the pain and fight on. So many would assume it was the serum. But she and Steve had lived their lives pre-serum in a world of never ending pain. Her from the medications, him from his physical ailments. Steve especially, from their long talks, she knew that that pain, coupled with the beatings he used to take from bullies…there was nothing worse. To have lived every day of your life with such a present and debilitating pain? Nothing compared to it, not the beatings or wounds they sustained after the serum.

They could handle pain better because they'd lived their lives in far worse pain constantly.

She imagined though, that had Natasha seen her now for the first time, she would have quite a different first impression of her. She was shot, bleeding, but refused to allow herself to be affected as she continued to distract the assassin trying to kill her, all to ensure Steve wouldn't be targeted and they could save the planet from HYDRA.

"Charlie locked!" Steve reported right at the moment that Bucky grabbed her leg with his other hand, twisting it to slam her to the ground beside him. He rolled instantly so he was on top of her, pulling another knife from his belt as he went to try and stab her, but she crossed her arms and managed to grab his wrist to stop him.

She let out a cry of pain as he moved his other hand, not needing it to stab, and slammed his fist into her side, right where he'd shot her before, likely cracking one of her ribs at the same time.

It was enough to get Steve's attention, the man sending his shield flying down and slamming into Bucky's back. The man let out an angry cry, slamming his metal fist into the glass just under Olivia, bracing his legs on either side of the panel and letting her fall through it, sure that the fall would kill her so he could focus on Captain America.

"Liv!" Steve screamed, watching, as though in slow motion, as Olivia fell from the carrier...

A/N: I feel like Olivia's little self-treating moment is very much her. She would be much more careful and tender and thorough with anyone else on the field if they were injured. But it's HER. She won't waste the supplies on herself when others might need them.

But lol, I died writing that bit about Steve already having proposed to Olivia :D Natasha was JUST starting to get into plotting how he could propose and they throw that wrench in it? Lol :)

Poor Bucky though :'( When he comes back to himself and remembers, he's going to be devastated with what he's done to both Olivia and Steve :'( As much as it killed me to end the chapter this way, I felt like it was too good a parallel to pass up, how Bucky fell and Steve couldn't help him, and now Olivia is falling and at Bucky's hand :'(

I know that part with Olivia confronting Bucky was a bit repetitive of when Steve faced him, but I felt like Olivia would try to get through to him too, and he wouldn't know who 'Bucky' is because of the brainwashing he went through again. I feel like, given what they know/assume about what's happened to him, Olivia would put the pieces together about how it happened a second time and have a good guess as to why. I felt that it would make her put a bit more effort and willingness into actually fighting Bucky or actively stopping him because she knows he CAN remember now and it'll kill him to have harmed Steve :(

Some notes on reviews...

Thank you for your welcome backs! :) I'm an SO glad to be able to get back to writing and posting again too and I hope you'll all enjoy what's coming up ;)


	10. The End of an Era

The End of an Era

Steve was sure he was in the middle of a nightmare and not reality when, before his very eyes, he felt as though he was watching Bucky fall from the train again, but this time...it was Liv. This was his partner, his best girl! Just like before, he was too far away to stop it, to reach her. And, just like before, he felt like his entire world was falling apart, because from this height there was no guarantee Olivia would survive the fall or that she'd even land in water.

He might lose Olivia...at Bucky's hand.

How was he supposed to handle that?

How COULD he handle that?

"Target system's on override," Hill reported in his hear, forcing him back to the present, to the situation at hand, to the mission, "Get out of there!"

Steve's gaze drifted from the hole in the floor, to the man getting up from it and glaring up at him, "Fire now," he gave the order.

He felt a constriction on his heart at doing so...Olivia would have been the one giving that order, she outranked him.

But she wasn't here.

"But, Steve..." Hill hesitated.

"Do it!" he commanded, "Do it now!"

He refused, absolutely _refused_ , to let everything he and Olivia had endured be for nothing by not making sure these carriers came _down_. With him in it or not made little difference, Olivia wasn't there, he prayed to god she was safe, but she wasn't there. It was just him and Bucky, and now the Winter Soldier couldn't use her as leverage or a trap or hurt her.

He staggered as the carriers began to fire at each other, grabbing onto the railing next to him, looking over only when he heard a strangled cry to see a piece of the ceiling had been torn apart and fallen onto Bucky, trapping him.

Anyone else would have told him to leave the Winter Soldier, would have tried to use what the man had done to Olivia to goad him into abandoning the fallen individual.

But they didn't know him and they didn't know Olivia if they thought he'd ever leave Bucky behind or that Olivia would ever _ask_ him to.

No matter what the man had done to him or to her, even, Olivia would have been the first one down there to help him, the medic in her seeing someone hurt and trapped and in danger and needing someone to pull him out of the fire, get him off the field and to help. The Winter Soldier had just pummeled the two of them and Olivia still moved to monitor him, make sure he was ok.

Steve had been a soldier, felt it in his soul that that was what he'd been born to be, but right now, with something so terribly wrong with Bucky, it was time to take a leaf out of a medic's book. Look past sides, look past harms, and help those who needed it. And this was _Bucky_.

Steve hefted himself up, gritting his teeth against the pain of the bullet lodged in his leg, of the beating he'd already sustained at his best friend's hand, and made his way down to where Bucky was. He braced himself, gripping the underside of the debris, and lifting with all his might, only managing to move it enough for Bucky to crawl out from under it before he dropped it, panting.

He looked to Bucky as the man struggled to catch his breath, "You _know_ me."

"No, I don't!" Bucky insisted, lashing out at him, a firm punch from his metal arm against Steve's shield sending Captain America flying back.

Steve pushed himself back up, "Bucky, you've known me _your_ _whole life_..."

But Bucky lashed out again, striking Steve in the face this time.

Steve had never been one to give up though, especially not on Bucky, "Your name is James Buchanan Barnes..."

"Shut up!" Bucky cried out, striking him once again, sending him stumbling back.

Steve shook his head, choosing instead to take his mask off, "I'm not gonna fight you," he told the man, dropping his shield out the broken floor of the helicarrier, "You're my _friend_."

Bucky let out a roar and tackled him to the ground, "You're my _mission_!" he insisted, slamming his metal fist against Steve repeatedly, "You're my mission!"

Steve gasped when Bucky paused in his attack, both men exhausted, but he could see Bucky wouldn't stop till the mission was over, he wouldn't leave this crashing carrier until it was done. He swallowed hard, "Then finish it," he said, a note of acceptance in his voice, "Cause I'm with you, to the end of the line."

Steve could barely see Bucky through the blood, sweat, and tears in his eyes, but he could see enough to know that _something_ had gotten through, that Bucky was holding back the final strike...but before he could even try to speak another word, the floor shattered beneath him, sending him plummeting down from the carrier towards the water below...

~8~

Olivia gasped as Steve coughed, water coming out his mouth as she rolled him over, the mouth-to-mouth she'd performed resuscitating him enough to get him breathing again. She let out a breath, resting her forehead onto his moving chest and just taking a single moment to utter a prayer of thanks. She had been in the water, not daring to swim for land while Steve was still in the helicarrier. It was a rather foolish move, she understood that. At any moment a piece of the carrier or the carrier itself could have crashed down right on top of her, but the third carrier was drifting on top of the water and it stood to reason that anyone escaping it would hit the water. She needed to be there to help when Steve escaped, because he HAD to escape.

When she had hit the water, it had been a stroke of luck that she had managed to get her bearings enough to hold her breath despite how her ribs protested. She'd slammed into it on her back, and truly if it hadn't been for the serum she was sure she'd have shattered a number of bones and sustained severe damage to her body. As it was, her back felt like it was one giant bruise and her lungs ached, but she was alive and able to move.

When she'd seen Steve falling, she'd immediately swum to where he had landed, but she'd been too far away still to dive down and get him when he didn't surface...

Bucky had though.

She'd seen him dive straight in after Steve and haul him to the surface. He had glanced at her for a single moment before looking away, looking down, and then swimming towards the shoreline with her following. The moment he was on solid ground, having been dragged out by Bucky, she'd assessed him and begun mouth-to-mouth when he wasn't breathing though she felt and heard his heart beating.

She looked up when she heard a crunching noise to see Bucky walking away, the man not having made a move to leave till Steve was ok.

"You saved him," she called out, making the man stop.

"Yes."

Even with his back turned, she could hear the grief and guilt and agony in his voice.

 _Bucky's_ voice.

Not the Winter Soldier.

"Why?"

The man tensed, "I don't know."

She shook her head even though he wasn't looking at her, "I do," she remarked, before slugging off her medical pack, trying to make the man feel less threatened if her 'attention' wasn't fully on him, he seemed tensed like he was ready for an attack, even from her, "Thank you...Bucky."

She watched out of the corner of her eye as his hands clenched into fists at his side, "I'm not him anymore."

She nodded, understanding, too much had happened to her and Steve as well to ever be the people they had been before the war started, "You're not the Winter Soldier anymore either," she reminded him, pulling out a bandage from her bag and moving to tie it around Steve's leg where she could spot the bullet wound, "Who will you be now?"

For some reason, THAT was what got him to turn around, or at least to twist just enough to look at her over his shoulder, "You're going to let me find out?"

"I don't think I'm in any position to stop you," she countered evenly, tying the bandage as tightly as she could to stem the bleeding before she looked up at him fully.

It was in the way he tensed that she could see it, the expectation, the man waiting for a blow to strike him...and not a physical blow.

She could have remarked about how she was injured, bleeding from two wounds, caused by him. She could have told him she was exhausted from keeping herself afloat after experiencing such trauma in her fall and fight with him. She could have gestured to the patient lying by her knees who required her immediate attention after the beating he'd sustained from a metal fist. She could have reminded him that said metal fist had nearly snapped her neck twice now and created the bruises that dotted her skin, that it was proof he could easily subdue her if she tried to apprehend him.

She could have brought up all the ways he'd hurt his best friend and his best friend's best girl in just this last hour alone, neverminding all the other harms he'd caused them in the hours before.

But she said none of it.

Because she was a _medic_ , and her purpose was to heal, not harm.

"My first priority will _always_ be the wellbeing of those I tend to," she said instead.

It went without saying that she counted Bucky among those, and that this was what _he_ needed most for the good of his wellbeing.

Broken things needed time to heal and Bucky would never be given that chance if he went with her and Steve or if he stuck around long enough to be captured by either side of this new war.

Something about that must have resonated with Bucky, for the man turned without another word and walked away, leaving her with a heavy heart and an even heavier patient to tend to.

She looked down at Steve, knowing he'd be heartbroken to wake with Bucky 'at large,' but knowing she needed to do her duty and get him to safety to ensure he _did_ wake up. She reached out and lightly touched his cheek, stroking her thumb, careful of his bruising and cuts, across his cheekbone for a moment before taking a breath. She trailed her hand down to his neck, to his shoulder, his arm, to his hand, and gently but firmly lifted it and tugged, maneuvering herself to get his arm around her shoulder, to get most of his body across her neck, wrapping her other arm around his thigh and surging to her feet before she started to walk back to the rendezvous point they had agreed upon before the mission.

~8~

Sam sat rigidly in a hospital room, two former-SHIELD agents, cleared of any connection to HYDRA, guarding the doors, the 'Trouble Man' soundtrack playing softly, his attention focused on a chair on the opposite side of the hospital bed he was sitting beside. So intent was he that he nearly jumped when he heard a tired, "On your left," from the bed and looked over to see Steve coming to.

Waking up days before the doctors thought he would, yet only an hour after Olivia had guessed he would.

He shook his head, smiling, "I think I should warn you, they're never gonna let you live it down."

"What?" Steve frowned.

Sam reached over and picked up a newspaper, placing it onto Steve's bed so the man could see the bold, colored picture of Olivia carrying him across her shoulders, the girl wounded, bleeding, looking like hell, yet carrying Captain America like it was nothing.

Whatever reaction Sam thought he'd get, hopefully some sort of indignant sputtering, maybe a laugh, probably just a fond shake of the head, it was none of them. Steve shot up in bed, wincing at the tug of his injuries, looking almost frantic. It wasn't till Sam noticed the man's eyes trained on the picture, the wounds Olivia sustained, and flashing to the door, that he realized Steve was completely terrified. His first thoughts weren't of feeling a bit embarrassed by the turn of events, but a consuming fear for where Olivia was and how she was doing.

"She's fine!" he rushed to reassure the man, "She's fine, well..." he winced, "As fine as can be..."

"What?" Steve let out a breath, though his heart monitor was still racing.

Sam just nodded to the side, to the other side of the hospital bed...where Olivia was sleeping, curled up on what looked like an actually comfortable, plush armchair that seemed quite out of place in a hospital room. The girl looked just as much like hell as she had in the photo, with bruises dotted around her neck, though faded somewhat, white bandages peering out from where her own hospital gown had tugged away from her shoulder, a few minor cuts everywhere. But she was alive, Steve could see it, her one arm draped over the side of her stomach, though her hand was splayed as though subconsciously putting pressure on a wound.

"She refused to leave you," Sam told him, watching as Steve struggled to sit up more to get closer to the girl, "Refused to let the docs treat her till you were taken care of."

"That's Liv," Steve murmured, reaching out to brush a strand of her hair behind her ear, resting his hand to her cheek, relieved, "She never lets herself come first."

Sam was silent, but he knew it was that way for a lot of medics, probably even more for Olivia given everything she'd lived through, the role she played. When he and Natasha had seen her staggering through the SHIELD crowd that gathered around their helicopter when it landed, sans Fury and Hill, her only concern had been getting Steve to a hospital for further treatment. And as soon as he had been laid out in the chopper, she'd instantly turned to the other agents, looking worn and pale, but offering to patch up any of them that were hurt, asking if anyone needed a medic.

The girl was literally standing there, bruised, beaten, and bloody, having carried Captain America god knew how far, sopping wet...and all she cared about was making sure other people were ok.

It had taken every single agent there insisting she go with Captain America, swearing they were fine, before she'd even entertain the thought of walking away. After Natasha exposed every single agent of SHIELD and HYDRA by dumping their information into the public, the only agents left there were true to SHIELD, those of HYDRA had fled into hiding. But he had a feeling, even if a HYDRA agent had been there, Olivia might have treated them anyway. They'd be in handcuffs and tied up, but she'd still help if they were seriously injured.

"They wanted her to rest," Sam continued, "Had a room set up for her too, but she just camped out here. Curled up on one of these god awful chairs, and kept monitor on your vitals."

Steve glanced at him, at the chair he was sitting on, and then to the plush chair Olivia was currently in.

Sam chuckled, "Apparently you have friends in some high places. Tony Stark had that delivered just for her."

Steve let out an amused breath, but promised himself he was going to thank Tony for looking out for Olivia, no matter how it was he'd found out about her ignoring doctor's orders. Probably Natasha gave him a call or something, he didn't really care how it all happened though.

Steve let his hand drop from her face to her hand, holding it lightly, his thumb running over her knuckles, "How is she?"

Sam was quiet a moment, not sure how much Olivia would want him to tell, not sure he even was _able_ to tell. Wasn't there some doctor-patient secrecy thing? Did that apply here? She wasn't his patient, he wasn't her doctor, but she sort of was kind of HIS doctor? In a way? Did that count?

"Two bullet wounds," Olivia answered instead, slowly coming round to the feel of Steve's hand in her own, "Shoulder and side," he didn't need to know just yet that the one bullet from Bucky had needed surgery, "Minor tenderness around the throat area, cracked ribs, bruised back and some other areas, but other than that," she blinked her eyes open to look at him, "Right as rain. In better shape than you."

He just shook his head, tugging on her hand, earning a smile as she got up from the chair and moved to sit on the edge of his bed. Until another, firmer, tug moved her to lie beside him, allowing him to gingerly wrap his arm around her, not wanting to exacerbate her back, but needing to hold her close after nearly losing her the way he had.

A small sniffle from Olivia told him she needed the same thing after nearly losing HIM.

Sam quietly stepped out of the room.

~8~

Olivia and Steve stood in a cemetery, just before Fury's 'grave,' watching as the very-much-alive man walked off, having offered them jobs as spies to help him discover some operatives of HYDRA that were scattered through Europe. When they, and Sam, who had accompanied them there, refused, he'd merely shaken their hands and turned to go.

"You should be honored," Natasha called over as she joined them, a manila folder tucked under her arm, "That's about as close as he gets to saying thank you."

"How'd it go?" Olivia asked, knowing she'd just come from some sort of committee meeting meant to determine the fallout of them taking down SHIELD.

Natasha shrugged, "Same as always, blame everyone but themselves. Talk about locking us up. Got real quiet when I reminded them that they still need us."

Steve glanced at her for the use of 'us' and how she wasn't heading after Fury, "Not going with him?"

"No."

"So you're staying here then?" Olivia smiled.

Natasha shrugged again, "I blew all my covers, I gotta go figure out a new one."

"That might take a while," Steve remarked.

"I'm counting on it," she smirked at them, "I mean, I _do_ have a wedding to help plan and..."

"Tasha," Olivia shook her head at the woman.

"We _just_ took down a huge portion of HYDRA," Natasha reminded them, "I think that's earned us a celebration."

But Olivia just kept shaking her head, glancing at Steve as the man let out a breath and gave her a go-ahead nod, "Tasha, we don't need you to plan a wedding for us."

"I won't plan the _whole_ thing," she promised, "I'll just be..."

"No, I mean..." Olivia let out a breath, "You _really_ didn't notice?"

"Notice what?"

"Steve had his shirt off, and you didn't see it?"

Natasha gave her an odd look, "I don't know what it was like in the 40s, but it's sort of rude to ogle someone else's man."

Olivia merely turned and reached over to Steve, lightly running her finger along the side of his neck where the edge of his necklace was visible, hooking her finger around it to gently tug it out and show the spy what was dangling on the end of the chain.

"You've _got_ to be _shitting_ me."

Olivia had to laugh at Natasha's exclamation, for there, nestled by Bucky's dogtags, was a ring.

A man's wedding ring.

Olivia turned back to Natasha and tugged her own necklace out from under her shirt as well, revealing an engagement and wedding ring dangling from the end of it.

" _Seriously_!?" Natasha demanded.

"We got married a few days after I proposed," Steve told her, chuckling, before tucking the necklace back.

"It was my Christmas gift to him," Olivia added with a soft smile.

She and Peggy had scrambled to find a way to do it. When Steve had proposed to her for Christmas, it was just...words failed to describe how she felt. She loved him _so much_ , she just wanted him to know she loved him just as much as he did her. She didn't want to wait till the war was won to let him know. Marriage wasn't all about the easy times, it was about the hard times too...and if they could survive a war, they could survive anything. She didn't want to begin a new year without him as her husband.

One well placed call to Howard from Peggy and, before she'd even realized it, Bucky was leading Steve to a small clearing, where the Commandos, Peggy, and Howard were waiting with a kindly priest from the nearest village. They had been married before the new year began, and Howard had pulled strings to get them a temporary leave, citing he needed to upgrade their suits for the final stretch of the war but really he had flown them to an island he owned so they could have just a moment's peace.

It hadn't lasted long before they were right back in the thick of it, helping to rescue the soldiers belonging to Peggy's future-husband's division and then going after Zola.

But it had been a dream in the middle of a nightmare.

They hadn't felt they could or should wear their rings on the battlefield though, what with him punching people and her, more often than not, yanking her gloves off and getting blood all over her hands. So the necklaces came into play, they never took them off, considering them good luck charms. Steve would sometimes get sentimental and kiss her knuckles, where her ring would be, he was endlessly sweet that way.

Not many knew they were married, not out of any need or desire to hide it. Fury had sworn to secrecy the doctors and agents who tended to them from the ice, who had seen the rings they wore and made the connection, which they hadn't fully understood the need to do. Anyone with eyes or a computer to look up their history knew they were together as more than just war-partners. They would automatically be the target others would go to to try and get to one of them. Being married wouldn't change anything, but they had gone along with the secrecy of it only because, despite being the faces of their countries, they were rather private people in some areas. Their marriage was no one's business but their own.

Natasha let out a disappointed huff, grabbing the file and thrusting it at them, "Well then consider this a belated wedding gift," she told them, "That thing you asked for, I called in a few favors from Kiev."

Steve looked down at the file, No. 17, which they knew contained information about the Winter Soldier, and handed it to Olivia to examine first, "Thank you."

Natasha nodded, "Be careful," she spoke, looking between them, "Both of you. You might not want to pull on that thread."

Sam watched as Natasha walked off, the woman grumbling about having to cancel the 'wedding of the century' and muttering about how long couples should wait before renewing their vows and did being frozen for 70 years count towards that? He shook his head, she was NOT going to let it go that easy was she? Before he focused on the duo, approaching them with a call of, "You're going after him?"

"Of course we are," Olivia remarked, so easily and so surely that Steve had to smile. She had his back, always.

"You don't have to come with us," Steve glanced at the man.

Sam nodded, "I know," before adding, "When do we start?"

Steve just shook his head when Sam smirked and saluted them before walking off, giving the two of them a moment.

"Well?" Steve asked, looking at Olivia as she flipped through the file.

"It's as terrible as we thought it would be," she murmured, a frown on her face, "Even more so," she sighed, handing him the file to see for himself. She crossed her arms, watching as his expression grew more stony the further he read, "Steve," she began when he snapped the folder shut, "What are we going to tell Tony?"

Steve let out a long breath, it would have been too much to hope Olivia wouldn't put the pieces together the way he had. She loved puzzles and codebreaking. Zola showing them snippets of the Winter Soldier and alluding to how 'accidents will happen' in relation to Howard Stark's death? It was clear to him, and Olivia as well, that Zola was implying the Winter Soldier had been responsible for it.

That Bucky had murdered Tony's father.

"Nothing," he said.

"Steve..." Olivia dropped her arms, shaking her head.

"We don't _know_ ," Steve looked at her, "We don't know, 100 percent, what happened," he reminded her, "Zola hinted at it, yeah, but there's nothing in this file about it, there's nothing that proves it was Bucky," he ran a hand through his hair, "I just...I don't want to tell Tony without _knowing_ , for sure. Because the second we do, he's going to go after Bucky. You know he will. He won't care if Bucky was a puppet or tortured into doing it, he won't go after the people that did this to him. It won't be like him forgiving Clint, it's too personal for him this time," he pointed out, a rather hard truth. Tony HAD forgiven Clint for his brief stint as an enemy, being mind controlled by Loki, but he wouldn't forgive Bucky. The people Loki hurt, weren't as close to Tony or as important to him as his own parents were, "And what if Bucky doesn't remember it? What if he was supposed to but the mission changed? What if he _didn't_ do it?"

Olivia shifted slightly, knowing Steve was grasping at straws with that last question. With everything they had learned, there was a fairly high chance that Bucky HAD done it.

But she supposed that _was_ his point. There was a high CHANCE, not proof, not a guarantee, not hard evidence that that was what happened. They only had Zola's word to go on and the man could just as easily have told them because he might have known who the Winter Soldier was and just wanted to cause strife.

And Steve was right. Tony might have had his differences with his father, but the man clearly loved him and was still hurting even now over losing him the way he had. If he heard even a _whisper_ that the Winter Soldier _might_ have killed his parents, and learned who the Winter Soldier was, nothing would stop him going after the man, whether he did it or not.

"Fine," she agreed, "But, if we find out that...that it WAS..."

Steve nodded, grim, "We tell him," he promised, "But not until we KNOW."

Olivia could only give a nod in return, unable to help but feel like this was going to be a no-win situation no matter how it played out.

~8~

Steve jerked awake, his heart racing, his breathing fast, feeling like he was shaking despite the sweat that broke out over his body. He immediately turned to the side, reaching out for Olivia, and nearly stopped breathing when he saw the other half of the bed empty. The nightmare he'd just endured raced across his memory. He had been back on that train, going after Zola, he'd been hanging out the warped side of it...but instead of reaching for Bucky, he was reaching for Olivia. She had been there instead, reaching out to him to save her, when the metal warped even more and she fell from the train. He'd stared in horror, frozen as she'd fallen, much like how she'd done from the helicarrier, when a shot rang out. His head snapped up to see Bucky, no...the Winter Soldier standing on top of the train, a smoking gun aimed at where Olivia was falling to ensure she didn't survive either way. He'd screamed out in horror...and jolted awake.

But Olivia wasn't there and for one, brief, terrible moment he'd thought...what if it wasn't a dream? What if that _was_ how it happened? What if it HAD been Olivia that fell? She wasn't there. Why wasn't she there? Where was she if not falling from that train and...

A glow of light, soft, caught his attention from under the door of the bedroom.

And then he remembered, he'd been reading Bucky's file in bed, waiting for Olivia to finish something in the living room...when he must have fallen asleep, still quite worn from everything that happened.

Though...as he looked down, he was sure he hadn't been under the covers, nor had he turned the lights off in the bedroom, and the file on Bucky was nowhere to be seen.

"Liv," he breathed, just _knowing_ she must have gotten him to bed and taken the file. It was her in the living room that was causing the light. He quickly moved (did NOT scramble, thank you very much) out of bed and out of the room, stepping into the living room to see only one lamp on. A small smile grew on his face when his eyes adjusted to the change in light.

Olivia was asleep, half sitting, half laying on the coffee table, piles of books before her, a handful of them open, with a pen in hand and a notepad beside her, Bucky's file on her lap. He moved to her side, about to try and wake her gently...when he saw exactly what she was reading. Psychology books, conditioning and training books, ones about PTSD and torture...all the medical books she could find geared towards anything even remotely close to what someone in the file Natasha gave them might have endured.

"I'm a medic," Olivia murmured, starting to wake as she sensed him beside her, "I'm supposed to help with wounds. The mind an be hurt, I need to know how to fix it."

Steve let out a gentle breath at that, understanding now what she was trying to do, find a way to help reverse whatever lingering affects the brainwashing that had been done to Bucky might cause and help him cope once his mind was restored. They had just had their world torn apart for a second time by HYDRA, and yet here she was, already trying to learn how to heal a battered mind, for HIM.

"And I'm your husband," he reminded her, putting Bucky's file on the table and shifting her slightly to wind his arms around her back and under her knees, scooping her up in his arms, "I'm supposed to tell you to sleep when you're exhausted."

"Husband you may be," she spoke, "But I still outrank y...oooouu," her words would have had more of an impact if she hadn't started to yawn at the end of it.

He chuckled lightly in her ear, stepping into the bedroom and placing her down where he'd been lying, the bed still warm, before walking around to the other, cooler side, to slip in with her, "Rest, Liv," he told her, pulling her closer, "The books will still be there in the morning. I doubt we're gonna find Bucky before you get through them."

Olivia was silent, though more awake now, looking at him as she reached out to gently trace his face, "I'm sorry," she told him, adding on, "I shouldn't have let him go like that."

He gave her a soft smile, the initial despair and disbelief and slight anger he'd felt when she'd first told him that it had been Bucky to pull him out of the water and that she'd allowed him to walk away, fading, even more so now that he'd read the file Natasha had given them, "Do you remember," he said instead, "That time HYDRA managed to get a grenade at us, and I jumped on it with my shield so the Commandos could get back?"

"And you went flying through four trees?" she gave him a look, "Dislocated your shoulder and sprained your elbow too."

He nodded, "Remember what you did when Buck tried to see how I was?"

She laughed a bit at the memory. It was one of the times she'd been close enough to assist the Commandos if they got injured, with that particular mission being one of the more daring and dangerous ones they'd undertaken. The grenade had been right at the end of that battle, and the moment Steve had groaned in pain, she'd been at his side in an instant, gotten him in hand, and rushed him back to where they'd made camp. Apparently she'd been quite fast in her reaction to seeing Steve down for the count, and had already gotten his shoulder seen too and his elbow bandaged before the Commandos could make their way back. Steve had _just_ fallen asleep when she'd heard the ruckus of them approaching, Bucky's voice the loudest.

She would NOT have her patient woken from much needed rest, and so she'd stormed out of there, warning them to be quiet. Bucky had _not_ taken well to not seeing his best friend with his own two eyes, and demanded she move aside, tried to shove her too.

Lesson learned, never stand between a medic and their patient...nor should anyone stand between her and Steve when he was hurt.

She'd grabbed Bucky by the arm he'd shoved her with, twisted him and gotten him into a fireman's carry, hauling him a far enough distance away that she was sure she and Steve wouldn't hear them with their improved hearing, and set him down to see that the rather stunned Commandos had followed her. She ordered them to wait there, to sit on Bucky if need be, and to be _quiet_ , that they would see Steve once he had rested enough to wake on his own and not because of their noise. She'd very firmly pointed at them before she'd strode off back to the tent.

Apparently one of the Commandos _had_ , very amusedly, actually sat on Bucky to keep him from following her, citing she outranked them.

All had been well once Steve woke and she'd gone to bring them back, Steve had found it all quite amusing really though it had taken some time for Bucky to see the humor in it.

"He was my best friend," Steve continued, "But, in that moment, you didn't see that. You saw someone that was going to wake me up when I needed to rest. You put me first," he reached up to take her hand, holding it, "I've seen you in Medic-Mode," he teased, having heard a few other people call it that, when Olivia jumped from fellow SHIELD agent to field medic, "I know that, right then, you weren't seeing my best friend, but someone who needed time to heal, to find themselves. I'm not mad at you, I'm actually really glad you did it."

"You are?" her voice was so quiet and unsure that Steve felt his heart clench.

He nodded. He hadn't at first, had kept in his more negative feelings to spare hurting her when she was already physically injured, but Olivia was observant, she could tell he hadn't been happy. The more time he spent thinking on it, though, the more glad he was for her decision.

"If I had been awake, I would have found some way to convince him to go with us, or for us to go with him..." he could admit that, "And it wouldn't have helped anyone. If he went with us, it wouldn't be just SHIELD coming after him," and he'd made his point when they talked about Tony that there was no saying what Bucky would even remember, about his original life or about his life as the Winter Soldier, "If we went with him, HYDRA would probably find some way to spin it that we were all in cahoots and we'd end up on the run."

"It wouldn't be so bad," Olivia weakly argued, knowing how much Steve must be hurting to be separated from Bucky again and to have had her had a hand in it, "Being on the run."

"No?"

"So long as I was with you."

He smiled, "Same here," he fell silent for a moment, "But...we needed time, waking up from the ice. We both needed time," he looked at her, "You needed time before you could see Peggy again. Maybe that's what Bucky needs too, time before he can see me again."

It went unsaid that Bucky, if his memories were all there, would probably feel enormous guilt for what he'd done, the pain he'd caused. It wouldn't be good for Bucky to be confronted with the two people he cared about most and know he'd hurt them so badly. He needed time to come to terms with what was done to him and what he'd done in turn. And while Steve would have wanted nothing more than to be beside him, help him through it as Bucky had done for him so often, it was different. Bucky had never before been the cause of something hurting him, but he was now, in a way. He couldn't deny he'd been physically hurt, even if he knew it wasn't Bucky's fault.

He could only hope that, when Bucky trusted himself enough, he'd come find them.

"And when he's ready, we will be too," Olivia promised, squeezing his hand.

Steve smiled and nodded, they would be. When Bucky was ready to face them, they'd be ready to help him truly heal.

To be continued...in...Home of the Brave!

A/N: I felt that title was fitting as a big theme in Ultron is home, protecting it (for the twins) and also Tony wanting to protect the planet, but also bravery in how Wanda forces them to face their worst fears :( It may take a while before we can get to that story though. I'm going to be aiming for finishing Lyssa, Menna, Sadie, Claire, and Angel's stories first and then evaluating where I am and what stories will come next. But I'll do my best to put a note about it on tumblr when I get to that point ;)

For this chapter though, poor Bucky, poor Steve, poor Natasha! Her dreams of their wedding are dashed lol. I hope there was enough hinting and foreshadowing about the possibility of Steve and Olivia having been married in the 40s that it doesn't feel like it came out of nowhere. I tried to allude to it in their necklaces, in Steve's habit of kissing her knuckles, in their remembrance of Christmas and their leave from the army for a short while. Peggy almost gave it away though! Mr. and Mrs. Rogers ;) I was hoping it would be a 'is she teasing because they ARE or her mind has just gone' sort of thing lol ;)

I know some may be very disappointed (probably not as disappointed as Natasha lol) to not see the wedding happen or see Steve propose, so I can say that I am debating doing a one-shot of the proposal/wedding/honeymoon/rescue of Peggy's future-husband in the future, not sure yet ;)

I also hope that Olivia's choice in letting Bucky go made sense. Outwardly and physically, he sustained less severe injuries than she or Steve did, he didn't need her to tend to him as extensively as Steve did. And, like with Natasha, Olivia is always trying to think ahead to the next steps needed to help someone. She knew she couldn't use her hands to keep pressure on Natasha's wounds and still get her to safety, whereas someone else's first reaction might be 'put pressure on the wounds, use your hands!' She has to think ahead in terms of 'will my tending these injuries get them time to be saved off the field' and it sort of carries over into trying to think ahead on other things. She has the forethought to know if Bucky goes with them, or them with him, it won't help him heal. He'd be captured and likely executed, or he'd be confronted with the reminder of the hurt he's caused constantly. That was her way of trying to help him, to let him go. Having him save Steve also was a very big indicator to her that his memories, enough of them, came back to ensure he would be safe to be around and wasn't still the Winter Soldier, so she felt ok letting him go as she didn't believe he'd be a threat to anyone else or harm them now that he remembered enough to save Steve :)

Again with her little moment of not treating herself but others :( She's still got that bullet wound in her shoulder, but she's using her time to wrap Steve's leg and then manages to carry him to safety despite her own injuries. That's so her :'(

For telling Tony, Steve probably knows deep down that Bucky DID kill the Starks (I feel terrible for lol-ing, but 'Winter' killed the 'Starks', terrible Game of Thrones little mini-connection there). But he doesn't want to believe it and he also wants to have physical proof before he says ANYTHING to Tony. If there's even the slightest chance that he didn't, Steve won't tell Tony. Olivia isn't pleased with it, but she understands that they don't 100 percent know, as Steve said. I was holding out hope too that Zola lied just to get to Steve :(

I also felt like, with Steve still trying to help Bucky after the man may-or-may-not have killed Olivia, it was sort of a combination of 'what would Olivia do' and 'this is BUCKY' and a hope that Olivia survived. Olivia would never ask Steve to abandon Bucky to death, even if he had killed her, the same way she would still try to help him even if he'd killed Steve. Because they know there is something so wrong with him, and he needs help. It worked out in the end, thankfully.

Lol, Tony sending Olivia a chair so she won't be uncomfortable is something I could see him doing :)

And, just to end...I really have to say thank you guys SO much! Really, I give each and every reader/reviewer/favoriter/follower/ko-fi giver/anythinger a virtual hug because you guys are amazing :) I write for all of you guys and I'm just so touched that you all liked the story and am truly thankful that you're enjoying Olivia :) I'll do my very best to keep it up in the future, because you guys most definitely deserve it. I love you all :')

Some notes on reviews...

Lol, Steve was quite calm wasn't he? :) I feel like, to him, each time Natasha would bring it up, he just gets a warm feeling inside because 'she's already my wife' sort of thing :) So he doesn't ruin the surprise because he likes being reminded of that ;) We might get to see the proposal/marriage, it may just take a while to get to ;)

I was so torn about who should fall or fall first. But I felt like Steve needed to be the one to spark Bucky's memory, so he had to go second. And I also couldn't see him blowing up the carrier if Liv was still there, he went through it once with the ice, I don't think he could handle it again :( So she had to fall at some point before then :( But yup, Bucky saved him! :) I also thought he needed to be the one to do that as another little puzzle piece to Olivia that his memory, or some of it, had come back and he could be trusted to go off on his own without killing anyone :) I can say Natasha might get to see a bit of Olivia in action in a scene or two to come ;) Tony didn't check on Olivia in person, but he definitely kept tabs on her by sending her a comfy chair :) Liv (and Steve) has her ring, no worries ;)


End file.
